Finally, it placed all matters pertaining to the management in the
hands of elective committees in the composition of which the men were to
have four-fifths of the elective power and the officers one-fifth.
Of course, the Declaration of Soldiers' Rights represented a violent
reaction. Under the old regime the army was a monstrously cruel machine;
the soldiers were slaves. At the first opportunity they had revolted and,
as invariably happens, the pendulum had swung too far. On May 28th the
Council of Workmen's and Soldiers' Delegates issued a declaration in which
it was said: "From now on the soldier-citizen is free from the slavery of
saluting, and as an equal, free person will greet whomsoever he chooses....
Discipline in the Revolutionary Army will exist, prompted by popular
enthusiasm and the sense of duty toward the free country rather than by a
slavish salute." If we are tempted to laugh at this naive idealism, we
Americans will do well to remember that it was an American
statesman-idealist who believed that we could raise an army of a million
men overnight, and that a shrewd American capitalist-idealist sent forth a
"peace ship" with a motley crew of dreamers and disputers to end the
greatest war in history.
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