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awkwardness and inefficiency. He stood
up manfully and used his little fists when
he got in a quarrel, and learned self-confidence
and manliness.
In high school and college he followed
the same system. His boyhood sports
later on yielded to baseball, football,
track, boxing, basketball and swimming,
but the spirit remained the same. No
matter how much organization any given
sport or other activity required, the American
youth always had to rely upon
himself and himself alone. He judged
himself, not only in comparison with the
opponents against whom he was pitted
on the rush-line or on the relay, but also
with his own associates and friends.
Where competition did not exist naturally,
he invented it—an illustration of
this lies in the present system of batting
and fielding percentages now kept for all
baseball teams, professional and amateur.
The first baseman likes to have a running
fight on his hands with the third baseman
and the left fielder, for slugging
"GET YOUR MAN!' 653
honors. And this is the spirit that makes
the American a good bayonet fighter.
Nothing appeals to the American mind
so quickly as something at once new and
useful, something that will give him new
strength and power in any contest.
whether the combat be the competition of
business or the sterner struggle of war.
And while he may not relish it, he is
sure not to shrink from bayonet combat.
This weapon brings man closer to primeval
struggle than any other now in use
and throws him, for the time being, back
into the Roman world, when the short
The Last Resort
Often, in bayonet combat, a fierce parry or cut results in loss
of the bayonet. This catastrophe leaves but one chance for life
—clubbing the rifle. If the soldier can get in one good blow
with his nine-pound rifle he may yet emerge victorious. He is
under a terrific handicap, however, for each time he swings he
leaves himself wide open to a thrust or lunge.
sword, the stiff strong arm, and individual
valor held Caesar's line against
the massed attacks of Germanic barbarians.
For the fierce combat of the trenches,
Smith's method should be thoroughlv
mastered. On the bloody plains of
France, they call it the "Get-your-man"
method. Never was a name better
chosen. Whoever knows how to use the
bayonet in the new way and keeps that
phrase in mind is pretty certain to survive
a fair stand-up fight. He can
hardly fail to best his adversarv. And
every private we may send to France
will be trained to "get his man."