The Daily Worker

THE DAILY WORKER

TOIL, BLISTERS AND ILLS RULE AT WAR CAMPS

"Vacation" Proves to Be Unbearable Grind

FORT HANCOCK, N. J., Aug. 23. -

The golden dreams of a month's vacation, with consequent health-building and enjoyment is rapidly fading out of scores of young workers who were inveigled into the C. M. T. C. camp here. What awaited them and what they are now undergoing is plenty of hard work and drill which commences before six o'clock in the morning and officially closed at six p. m., but really continues later into the night.

The men are required to tramp around the parade and drill grounds a good many times a day, clothed in a straight jacket that is called a uniform, to carry a bayonet and rifle weighting ten pounds, also a pair of shoes which alone weight nearly four pounds. The result of this, which may sound funny to our readers, is bunions, blisters and corns. The evil of sore feet being a common malady here makes it necessary to maintain a regular form of inspection of feet.

Many Fall Ill.

Not only are the drills hard and tiresome, but the food given here has resulted in constipating the men. Those of whom found no relief in C. C. pills, were sent home together with those who were suffering from severer cases of sore feet, or other ills.

Complaints grow continually day after day, larger and larger, until drill time the squads are skeletonized, that is, the rear ranks instead of containing four men as they are supposed to, hold only two, and at other times it is necessary to amalgamate two squads into one, in order to make a showing on the parade grounds.

This is the truth about the grand and glorious time promised to the young workers. The month's vacation consists of hard drill, and parades twelve hours a day, after which there is side work to do, such as cleaning rifles, getting the tents in order, etc. - The vacation seekers are under the commands of all kinds of petty officials - from mere corporals who are embryonic officers to the higher ups such as majors and captains, every minute of the day.

Athletic games in which the workers participate a little more than an hour each day are dictated to them and they have no choice or will.

Government authorities are aware of the fact that the sentiment here is opposed to re-enlisting for the next year's camp.

It is on re-enlistments that they can be moulded into useful tools for J. P. Morgan & Co., therefore, the government has already commenced to spread propaganda for re-enlistments both printed and verbal.

There is evidence to doubt the success of propaganda for re-enlistments. Most of them are sick of the monotony and rigid discipline and are certainly anxious for the month to pass quickly. In fact, most of them have learned that training to be a soldier for capitalism is far from being a vacation, but is hard labor. Young proletarians should take a lesson from these facts, and not permit themselves to be lured into sweat camps and understand that it is nothing and can be nothing for them but a change from one kind of hard labor into another.

They should instead organize and in this way present a demand for yearly paid vacations.

If you want to see the Communist movement grow - get a sub for the DAILY WORKER.