( > OMAHA ILLUSTRATED BEE. November 20 , isoo.
COMPANY L SQUAD IN HEAVY MARCHI NO ORDER Photo by Courtesy of Harry
Sacked.
IOWANS CROSSING BAGDAD RIVER Photo by Official War Department Photographer.
How Different Countries
Treat Their Soldiers
With the United States at war in the
Philippines , England at war with the Doors
and every great nation anxiously scanning
Its military equipment , the life of a soldier
possesses , nt this time , a peculiar and per
sonal interest to all people , rotates tbo
Detroit Free Press. The great armies of the
United States , England , Germany and Franco
are on paper merely military bodies moved
about at the will of commanding generals ,
but these armies are composed of units.
Each unit IB an Individual who thinks for
himself , suffers or enjoys to the limit of
human capacity , and who has strong ties
binding him to one or more persons in the
noncombatant force of the nation. These
units come and go from civil life. Their im
pressions are spread broadcast and they enthuse -
thuso or prejudice the people as a whole ,
according to personal experiences. This la
more particularly true of armies where the
service la voluntary , as in the case of Eng
land and the United States , and In these
countries public criticism of government In
stitutions Is not a crime , In fact , It Is rather
encouraged. ,
The rank and fllo of an army Is Its
strength. The forced draft does not produce
soldiers with high Ideals. The volunteer , as
a rule , Is Inspired by something moro than
the (1 cslro to feed nt public expense. Ho Is a
citizen , a patriot , a willing defender of bin
country's policy. Ono way In which this la
recognized Is In the treatment of Its soldiers
by various nations. The private In the
American army has at times been short of
food , without shelter and without hospitals ,
but Biich occasions have arisen from lack of
system or Intelligence , not from lack of In
tention or dcslra to furnish the best. The
American soldier gets double the pay of any
other soldier In the world. Ho Is as well or
better fed , ns well clothed and as carefully
equipped. His life , In times of stress , Is no
holiday , but , ns compared to the llfo of pri
vate soldlors In foreign armies , ho is a
highly favored Individual.
An lliifiirtiinntn Clinum" .
It was not long ago that a lieutenant in
the American army resigned his commission
under stress and desiring' to hldo himself
enlisted In tbo British army under an as
sumed imhio as a private. After serving
three months in one .of the crack English
regiments stationed at one. of the most do-
Hlrablo posts In England he wrote to a friend
in the United States : "Tho life of a private
In the ( American army Is heaven compared
to the hell endured by a private In the
British army. " Thla lieutenant was a good
soldier , ono of the best drill masters in his
regiment and ho had como Into bis American
commission from tbo ranks , so bis opinion
was worth noting. With all that the llfo of
the British private le still far preferable to
that of the private In the German , French ,
Austrian , Russian or Italian armies. The
English soldier Is paid 24 cents a day and
this Is a princely sum compared to what the
soldiers get on the continent. The differ
ence Is shown in the total cost of keeping
these armies , for while the United States
formerly paid 151,000,000 to support an army
of 25,000 men , England paid but C2.000.000 to
support over 200,000. Germany paid still
less In proportion and Russia the smallest
per capita of all.
A prominent American army officer who
has been abroad recently has said that Eug-
land luw reached the limit of her military
strength In time of peace and that the pay
of soldiers would have to bo Increased or
enforced military service would have to be
made. This point was passed long ago by
continental Europe and there- are many
significant things which tend to corroborate
the prophecy as to England. Matters of this
kind cannot bo .Judged In time of war , for
all men willingly go to the relief of their
flag when Us ascendency Is threatened. The
peace basis Is the only safe estimate of a
country's real strength In the guarding of
Us possessions against possible and not
nctlvo foou.
In ll'rltitlii'H Army.
In addition to smaller pav the English
soldier docs not get such good cnro as does
the American soldier. This Is shown In a
moat Interesting way In a now book called
"Tho Qucmi's Service , or the Real Tommy
Atkins , " by Horace Wyndlmm , , who served
Hevoral years as a pnlvnto In the English
army. The book is a simple recital of
Wyndlmm's career from the time ho enlisted
to bis discharge. There are no attempts at
literary flights nor does ho spend much time
In moralizing , The Impression gathered from
tbo book Is that the English army Is drawn
from a very difficult does of men BO far as
good citizenship Is concerned , that they are
licked Into excellent soldiers and make good
lighters. The author also complains of the |
small pay , scanty food , poor shelter and in
adequate clothing furnished , and ns com
pared with these things as found In the t
American army his complaints seem Justifi
able ,
It takes a war to test an army no matter
bow perfect It may appear In time of peace ,
and England's army has been mainly ono of
occupation. The old saying that a soldier Is i
lucky If ho gets six months of fighting in
twelve years of service Is well Illustrated
with the English array , for comparatively 1
few of Uu men or junior officers have ever
The
Fifty-First
Iowa
Volunteers
Before
the
Camera
THE REGIMENTAL MASCOT FILIPINO
. .
SHIELDS ADOPTED BY W. S. SHIELDS
. .
OF LEON. la.
seen service , notwithstanding England's
armed supremacy.
The Dreyfus case has attracted wide at-
tentlon this year to the French army , and
Its officers , staff and line , have been severely
criticised. In his book "Trooper 3809"j
Lionel Declo tells a story of the life of tbo
French-private. ' Ho brings out most vividly
the details of poor pay , wretched clothea and
food , unequal punishment , favoritism , and
sums ' up the condition of the military arm
of Franco as follows :
In tlic French Army.
"Yet how does the case really stand ? Are
these ' armed multitudes as , formidable as
more ' arithmetic would have us think ?
France ! , for Instance , prides herself upon be
ing able to put In the field millions of trained
men. \ AVhat docs this boast amount to ?
Upon the outbreak of war , In these days of
rapid ] mobilization , much perhaps all
would depend upon the troops first In tbo
flold. ' And these troops , upon whoso behavior
In the brunt of sudden battle the salvation
of their country might depend , would be
not a body of well-trained fighting men ,
leavened with veterans , and relying upon
tholr leaders with glad confidence but a
crowd of half-taught lads , lacking In thows
as well as training , and led or driven to
battle by officers whom either they have
never seen until the day of conflict , or whom
they know and hate.
"As for the reserves , suffice It to say that
officers of the active nmy refuse to regard
them seriously , and consider them merely in
the light of civilians playing at soldiering.
The officers of the reserves ( for the most
part promoted privates ) have received no
military education worthy of the name. The
noncommissioned officers and men consider
the month they have to servo every other
year a hateful episode. Awkward In their
unaccustomed uniforms , they do not oven
look like soldiers , and it would take months
of training to convert them into such once
more. In point of efficiency they are , of
course , far Inferior to our volunteers.
"I3ut behind these stands yet another line
of defense the territorial army and its re
serve an army composed of men who have
a faint recollection that they once were
drilled. There Is something pathetic as well
as absurd in picturing these middle-aged
citizens In time of war clad In antiquated
uniforms , handling unaccustomed weapons ,
and painfully If conscientiously struggling
to acquire a knowledge of now regulations
and modern drill. To sum all up It may bo I
true that Providence is still on the side of
the big battalions , but chiefly , wo think ,
when these battalions are well officered , well
trained and animated with all the virtues of '
the soldiers. "
The American military sy tem has serious i
defects , which have been brought clearly
to light In the recent war. These are defects i
which can and will undoubtedly be remedied ;
but there are no defects in the material of :
DEPARTURE OF FIFTY-FIRST IOWA FOR PHILIPPINES FROM TRANSFER
DEPOT , COUNCIL BLUFFS Photo by Courtesy of J. N. Cocliran.
THE WATER WORKS TEN MILES OUT OF MANILA.
which the army la made or In the spirit
which animates It. It Is not too much to
say that the standard of material and the
strength of the spirit are kept at the highest
and most effective point by Intelllgen : and
Jlberal ' j treatment of the privates. This Is
so much more Intelligent and so much more
j liberal than In any other army In the world
that ( there is no comparison.
Explosive Danger of Dust
An explosion of flour dust In the New Eng
land mills In Chicago on Wednesday , which
killed several men and destroyed the mills ,
Is but another Instance of the power for
harm which resides In an atmosphere heav
ily charged with flno particles of starchy or
other ' combustible matter. Such accidents
are not uncommon , reports the New York
Sun , and the necessity for guarding against
the projection of a spark Into an atmos
phere charged with gas or the fumes of gas-
ollno or alcohol has been demonstrated
often.
Such explosions used to be common In the
malt-grinding mills of brewerlea where
sparks generated by nails or other bits of
Iron getting into the mills would set fire to
the malt dust , and It was the custom to
build the mill rooms of light material which
could bo destroyed without very costly dam
age. Magnets are now suspended In the
malt chutes to pick out the dangerous bits
of metals and explosions In the mills are
uncommon. It was only a few weeks ago
that an explosion took place In the malt
room of Stevenson's brewery In this city
from which came a flro that did much dam-
ago. The dust-laden air was exploded by
a spark from an exposed machinery belt.
About a year ago there was an accident
somewhat similar to that In Chicago in a
mill In Long Island City which was ac
companied by loss of life. Grain was being
dumped Into the bin by a conveyor and It
was supposed that the dust was fired by
the opening of a furnace door In the nearby
boiler room. The flro traveled with explo
sive force along the conveyor for several
hundred feet and Injured some men who
were working at the end of It.
Finely comminuted combustibles of any
kind , when mixed with a proper portion of
air , form explosives akin to gunpowder. A
ppark or open flame which heats a few
particles of the dust to a high temperature ,
causes these to combine with the oxygen
of the air In which they are suspended , and
the flame shoots through the wbolo mass
with explosive rapidity. Flame has been
known to travel for twenty foot or more
along a draft of air laden with gasollna
fumes , and It will do the same with a dust-
laden draft.
With dust mixtures , as with those of vola-
tllo hydro-carbons or Illuminating gas , the
explosions are most violent when the amount
of air In the mixture Is just sufficient to sup
ply the oxygen necessary for the perfect com-
bustlon of the suspended matter. When
these conditions exist these mixtures have
the ability to do more damage to buildings
ttan would be done by the disintegration of
an equivalent amount of dynamite or fulmi
nate. In the case of the more powerful ex
plosives their particles are simply shaken
apart and resolved Into gases with an ac
tion so sudden that the air itself offers as
much resistance as more solid substances.
The manifest effect Is to shatter the harder
substances , but only within a small area.
The slower explosions produced by the re
lease of gases by combustion and their ex
pansion by the resultant heat , get time to
spread their effects over a wide area , and
hence their wrecking effects upon a building
when the explosion takes place within.
Only a few weeks ago a house In East
Fifty-sixth street was wrecked by an ex
plosion of gas that had leaked Into It over
night from a broken street main. Its walls ,
front and rear , wore blown completely out
at the lower story and stripped above , and
the workman who unwittingly started the
explosion was found dead within the base
ment door where ho had evidently stood
while bo lit a match. That accidents of this
kind are not preventable so long as men will
light matches or take a lamp to look for a
gas leak , Is evident , but those in ( lour mills
and other manufactories where the danger Is
known , ought to bo made impossible through
the i provision of ample ventilation and the ex
clusion of all flro or spark-producing devices ,
la clear. Suitable precautions have made the
manufacture of gunpowder almost as safe as
stone crushing , and the Ilka would bo true
of the manufacture of smokeless powder and
nitroglycerine if It were not for the un
stable chemical character of the materials
during , parts of the process.
Anything for Peace
Cleveland Plain Dealer : The peppery little
man hopped around the famous prizefighter ,
"You're a big bundle of nothing , " ho
snarled. "I dare you to strike mo , "
The big prizefighter shook his head. Ho
didn't want to run any chances of Injuring
himself In a'barroom broil.
"You're a yellow dog , " shrieked the little
man.
"I'm a yellow pug , " said tbo big man
quietly. Then ho walked away.
Justified
Detroit Journal : Yes , she had sent the
other woman the poisoned caramels through
the malls ; she did not deny It.
"I hated her ! " cried the defendant , her
dark eyes flaming malignantly. "I had rea
son ! For once wo went shopping together
and I Insisted on paying the car fares for
both of us and fllio let met"
Here her voice rose to a shriek , while the
jury , composed entirely of women , burst lute
tears and brought In a. verdict of not guilty
without leaving their seats.
