'WILL ANYBODY GO
TO BE A SODGER?'
HARD TIME THESE DAYS TO
KEEP THE RANKS FULL.
Recruitin Stations Everywhere and
Tight-Laced Doughboys Out
in Front to Lure on
the Rookies.
Will anybody go for a sodger? With a standing army of 60,000 to keep up and time-expired men not willing to go back to the cities, and the Philippines not big enough to keep up the strength to the peace footing.
Times are not what they used to be, and no longer is there slouching at the recruiting stations. It used to be, when the army was 30,000 strong, that to enlist a man had to go all the way to Fort Leavenworth. Now they have recruiting stations at rural free delivery towns and in cities like Kansas City they have regular barracks. Here the army recruits at Eighth and Main. It is easy to find. There will be a man standing in the doorway laced up to the last notch., with his blouse fitting like a directoire, his chevrons or re-enlistment stripes as bright as the day he got them and his cap just so. His belt is there and so are his gloves, and he is looking as comfortable and lazy and well dressed and well fed as it is possible to do on $18 a month and a captain on the next floor up threatening to send him back to the post for old guard fatigue if he as much as lets a single button go for comfort. The orders are to dress up and look smart and get the rookie. Yesterday's dispatches said that there are still other troubles ahead, and they are white belts.
UNIFORMS WILL DO.
"First thing we know," said one of the recruiting party yesterday, "we will have swagger sticks issued and ribbons on the caps. Then we will be all Tommy Atkinses an that will fix us."
"Will you like it" was asked.
"Nobody leaves the army on account of the uniform not being smart enough," was the answer.
Recruits are wanted, and the only way to get them fast enough to fill up the gaps caused by retirements is to pay as much as the treasury department can stand, now fixed at $18, and to dress the men as smartly as possible. The British methods are being adopted because Britain and this country have to depend upon volunteer enlistments. All other powers have conscripts.
The British, realizing that there is no inducement going into that army for the beggarly pay of about $8 a month in infantry and not much more in the artillery or cavalry, put their troops in the smartest uniforms that military tailors can design, and they are constantly changing them in order to give the men a change of dress. Trafalgar square, London, is the great recruiting station in London. Around the base of Nelson's monument there are to be seen recruiting sergeants from a score of regiments, all in full dress uniforms, with little streamers flying from their caps or shoulders signifying that they are recruiting officers.
REFUGE OF LOVE SICK.
They are picked for their smart appearance and are great successes at catching the love sick swain who realizes that if he had on a shell jacket, tight fitting trousers, spurs, leather gloves and a fatigue cap tipped over his right forehead he would stand a better chance than in overalls and clod hopping shoes, so he enlists. The uniform does it.
Since the march with the allied armies to Peking, American army tailors have been busy, and since the department has found it difficult to get enough men to keep the regiments up to their full strength, the recruiting officers have been ordered to get busy. So that accounts for the new orders which make the men at Eighth and Main do sentry-go at the door, dressed for guard mount, apparently standing there out of pride, but really because of the new orders to make the service look as inviting as possible from every point of view.
