Not Guilty: A Defence of the Bottom Dog

by Robert Blatchford

Chance has placed me very often in positions of authority. I have been in charge of rough and reckless men: soldiers, militiamen, navvies, workers of all sorts. I have never found it necessary to be harsh, nor to threaten, nor to drive. I have always found that to respect men as men, to treat them fairly and quietly, and to show a little kindness now and again, has sufficed to get the best out of them.

I have gone into the midst of a crowd of Irish soldiers, all drunk, and all fighting in true Donnybrook fashion, and have got order without a hard word, without making a single prisoner. Directly they recognised me they calmed down. Had I been a sergeant disliked by them they would have thrown me downstairs.

I have found the wildest and the lowest amenable to reason and to kindness. One of the greatest ruffians in the regiment once spoke rudely to me in camp, and even threatened me. I was then a lance-corporal, and a mere boy. I sat down and talked to the bruiser quietly for a few minutes, and from that day he would have done anything for me.

There was a blackguard in my company who once threatened to murder me. A few months later he was taken ill in the night and I attended to him, and probably saved his life. He never forgot it. It was but a small kindness, and he was what is generally called a scoundrel, but he showed his gratitude to me all the rest of the time I was in the army.

As a child I was brought up under strict discipline. I felt that it was a wrong method. I have "spoilt" my children; and they are better than I ever was.

Parents beat their children for their own errors. If a father cannot gain the respect and obedience of his children, it is because he is foolish, or violent, or ignorant. Children, soldiers, and animals are alike in one respect: they know and respect strength and reason. The quiet manager, officer, sergeant, parent, who knows his own mind, who keeps his temper, who is not afraid, can always get discipline and order. If I thought any one under my control or care was afraid of me, I should feel ashamed. If a master rules only by fear of punishment he is not fit to rule at all. When those over whom we happen to be placed in authority feel that we deserve their respect, we get it If you want to know whether a man is fit for command, put him with men who are not bound to obey him. Put him with his equals, where he has no power to punish nor to harm. Thus you will find the real leader of men: the man who leads with his brains.

I knew a young lieutenant once, a boy of twenty. He met a boy private in town, and saw that he had been drinking. Had he made a prisoner of the boy, the private would have got punished for drunkenness, and would have got drunk again. But the young officer sent for the boy the next day and said, "If I were you, Thomas, I wouldn't drink. It is a poor game, and your people would not like it" That boy was cured.

That same officer, if the men were unsteady on parade, would stand quite still and look at them. He had clear blue eyes, and his look was not stern, it was calm and confident. It brought the whole company to attention without a word. The officer was a man, and the men knew it, and they knew it because he knew it The boss who begins to bully is not sure of himself. Children, soldiers, workers, and animals know by instinct when the boss is not sure of himself.

Those who put so much trust in blame and punishment do not understand human nature. I said in a previous chapter that a man could not believe a thing unless his reason told him that it was true. I now say that a man cannot help believing a thing when his reason tells him it is true. The secret of reform is to make men understand.

The terrors of capital punishment, the terrors of the "cat," even the terrors of hell-fire fail to awe the criminal. That is because the criminal is stupid or ignorant, and lacks imagination. He hears of hell, and of death. But he cannot imagine either. He seldom thinks. He seldom looks beyond the end of his nose.