Ring Lardner

Calgary Herald/January 26, 1922

To the Editor: Maybe some of my readers will recall how the writer was sent to Washington early in November to see that the boys got a good start in their disarmament conference which begun down there about that time and I hung around there about a wk. and everything looked cheery and bright and it looked like the boys was in ernest and didn’t need nobody to watch them so I come on home and left them to their own devices. Well it is beginning to look as’ if I come home too soon.

As I understood it at the time, the reason for all the nations getting together was to see if maybe they wasn’t some way to fix it so as we wouldn’t have no more war or at lease, lesson the danger of haveing same. And that is what the boys started out to do, but in the last few wks, as near as I can make out they been devoting their tension to preparations for another war and what laws is going to govern conduct of same and you would pretty near think it was the annual meeting of the intercollegiate rules committee to discuss changes for next yr.

Like for inst. Asst Coach Root of the U S team has made 2 suggestions which it looks like they would both be adopted namely:

• that submarines mustn’t attack nothing but war ships and,
• that they can’t no nation from now on use poison gas.

These has been agreed on by the other members and are suggestions which meets with gen approval throughout the civilize world. But how are you going to enforce same is another question. According to Mr. Root’s dope the submarine that shoots at a merchant ship will be looked on as a pirate and the nation that uses poison gas as a dirty outlaw. But the people that done both them things in the last war was called a whole lot worse names than that and never batted a eye.

Penalties to Fit Crimes

What the boys needs first of all is suitable penaltys for violations of the rules both new and old and secondly they need somebody to see that same is carried out and if I was running the meeting down in Washington I would appoint Tiny Maxwell and Walter Eckersall and W. G. Crowell and Tom Thorp, Harry Heneage and etc. and assign them to the next war and leave some of them set in a boat out in the ocean and handle the navy game wile the others officiates in No Man’s Land and I would tell them to see that the rules was lived up to and would give them a handy hook of same with the new rules listed separate like as follows:

Rule XV

No submarine shall shoot at any ship other than a war ship belonging to a opponent.

Penalty —

Submarine must come up 5 yards closer to the surface.

Rule XVI

Neither side shall use poison gas.

Penalty — Loss of half the distance to the goal

Rule XVII

No regiment may replace another without the regiment thus substituting first reporting to the referee

Penalty —

For hot reporting — Loss of 5 yards. For new regiment communicating with old regiment before reporting to the referee loss of 15. Yards.

Rule IX

Gunners must all be behind the gun when gun is fired.

Penalty —

The gun shall be fired off again from a point 5 yards further away from whatever they was shooting at.

Rule XXI

No soldier of the side which is going over the top shall be in motion towards the opponent’s trenches before the signal is given.

Penalty —

Loss of 5 yards from the point at which he started.

Rule XXV

They shall be no coaching either by generals or other persons not participating in the action.

Penalty —

Loss of 15 yards by the side for whose supposed benefit the offense was committed. The offender shall be excluded from the neighborhood of the field of battle for the remainder of the war.

Rule XXVI

Nobody shall attempt to crawl after they been shot down.

Penalty —

Loss of 5 yards.

Rule XXXII

In case of accident to a participant one representative of his army may, if he has first obtained the consent of the officials, come on to the field of battle to tend to the injured man. This representative need not always be the same person.

Rule XXVIII

No person not takeing part shall be allowed to walk up and down No Man’s Land.

Penalty —

Loss of both legs.

Rule XXX

Upon one nation declareing war another, the other nation must be ready to fight within 2 months after receiving said declaration of war.

Penalty —

Forfeiture of the war.

RING W. LARDNER

Great Neck, Jan 27.