It is matter of common knowledge that the United States soldiers and marines are forced to spend a considerable portion of their cash incomes for food that the Government is too stingy to furnish. That is, the ruling class have such contempt for their human “watch dogs” that they furnish them a meaner living than is received by the most meanly paid group of the working class over whom they stand guard and stand ready to murder if they strike and struggle for more.
In the same Report, under the heading “Quarters,” is this:
“The fact that he is living in a $40,000 building impresses the soldier less if he finds in it only iron bunks, cheap chairs, and unpainted tables—the absolute necessities for his use and nothing for his comfort. The barrack is the home of the soldier while he remains in the service. It is possible that he might think oftener of continuing there if it presented more the appearance of a home. So far as the squad rooms are concerned, mere room adornment is neither necessary nor advisable [!] ... The squad rooms are sleeping rooms only. There is space only for bunks, lockers and a few chairs; but these last might in part be something more than the present cheap and uncomfortable article. But it is the reading and amusement rooms that are meant particularly. There is no reason why they should not be made habitable. [Indeed! Really, Mr. Taft! How daring of you!] A few barrack chairs and rough tables, with possibly a billiard table, ordinarily constitute their furniture now. There is little to tempt a man to stay there. [“Tempt” is good.] ... These rooms might be made comfortable and pleasant. A rug on the floor, a few prints on the walls, substantial chairs, a few writing tables and writing materials could all be supplied at no serious expense to the United States.... There is nothing degenerating in such furnishings; there is much that is homelike.” [Like whose home?]
“A few prints”—not many of course, and cheap ones, let us say about ten cents each; and “a rug”—a dull, unexciting mat of rags—simply these and nothing more, lest the degenerating influences of fine art should soften the syrup-baited lads’ blood-lusting temper too much for the more glorious art of butchering. As Mr. Taft profoundly remarks, “There is little to tempt a man to stay there” at present; but, as he sagaciously suggests, about 98 cents expended in baiting the bunk-room trap with a few original Italian, or, say, Dutch, masterpieces, and a few imported Persian fascinations of emotional red—this 98 cents for the seductions of fine art added to a nickel’s worth of skimmed milk and molasses would be an effective allurement for the khaki heroes to re-enlist and “stay there.”
Recently Congressmen and Senators advanced their own salaries from $5,000 up to $7,500 per year. This is one sign of self-respect. This advance of $2,500 per year will of course be sufficient to provide a fair quality of syrup and skimmed milk for the statesmen’s dessert.
Does it seem probable that cheap molasses added to the dessert of the soldier’s ration and a few ten-cent prints hung on the walls of the soldiers’ living rooms will attract Taft’s sons or Roosevelt’s sons or the sons of Senators and Congressmen and the sons of the “better class leading citizens” to the dreary, barren barracks provided for men who stand ready to slaughter for less than 50 cents a day and cheap “keep”?
Says Major-General J. F. Bell, Chief of Staff:[[221]]
“That men enlist believing they will love the life is likely, but their mental picture is oftentimes so different from the reality that disappointment is the almost inevitable consequence.”
Fifty-eight per cent. of all the desertions from the military service in the year 1906 were desertions of men in their first year of service, and considerably more than half of these desertions were during the first six months of service.[[222]]
Twenty-six times as many enlisted men in our army committed suicide in 1908 as in 1907, and thirty-nine times as many of the “tempted” and trapped young men in our army committed suicide in 1909 as in 1907. No suicides are reported for the years 1901 to 1906 inclusive. The record for the three years 1907, ’08, ’09 is 1, 26, 39, respectively.[[223]]