p PS 66 2.3 
 
 UC-NRLF 
 
 hi 1DM 31fl 
 
 V\\B 
 
 1?:.. BERKE LEY LIBRARIES 
 
 University of California Berkeley 
 
CENSORED 
 
 By the Postmaster General 
 
 Here is "A Good Soldier," by Jack London, which has 
 aroused the militarists of this nation to the extent that 
 Postmaster General Burleson has barred from the mails 
 envelopes containing this article. The APPEAL TO REASON 
 was threatened with a "fraud order" if it persisted in 
 sending envelopes through the mails containing London's 
 article. The Postmaster General did not even give the 
 APPEAL a chance in the courts. He said: "Either stop 
 circulating 'A Good Soldier' on envelopes or we will 
 close up your doors by refusing to deliver a single piece 
 of mail to you." So in "Free America" the APPEAL has 
 been forced by a War Censor to take this means to circu- 
 late Jack London's criticism of the soldier profession: 
 
 * * * * 
 
 A Good Soldier 
 
 BY JACK LONDON 
 
 Young man, the lowest aim in your life is 
 to be a good soldier. The good soldier never 
 tries to distinguish right from wrong. He never 
 thinks; never reasons; he only obeys. If he is 
 ordered to fire on his fellow citizens, on his 
 friends, on his neighbors, on his relatives, he 
 obeys without hesitation. If he is ordered to 
 

 16 
 
 fire down a crowded street when the poor are 
 clanioring for bread, he obeys, and sees the 
 gray hairs of age stained with red and the 
 life-tide gushing from the breasts of women, 
 feeling neither remorse nor sympathy. If he 
 is ordered off as one of a firing squad to exe- 
 cute a hero or benefactor, he fires without hesi- 
 tation, though he knows the bullet will pierce 
 the noblest heart that ever beat in human 
 breast. 
 
 A good soldier is a blind, heartless, soul- 
 less, murderous machine. He is not a man. 
 He is not even a brute, for brut.es only kill in 
 self-defense. All that is human in him, all that 
 is divine in him, all that constitutes the man, 
 has been sworn away when he took the enlist- 
 ment oath. His mind, conscience, aye, his very 
 soul, are in the keeping of his officer. 
 
 No man can fall lower than a soldier it 
 is a depth beneath which we cannot go. 
 
 [If you want to know more abo\it Socialism or how to join the 
 Socialist party, write to the Appeal to Reason, Girard, Kan. Th 
 Appeal to Reason is a weekly paper and costs 50 cents a year.] 
 
Hollinger Corp. 
 pH8.5 
 
Hollinger Corp. 
 pH8.5