STRATEGIC DIFFERENCE

Evening Post, Volume CXX, Issue 125, 22 November 1935, Page 14

STRATEGIC DIFFERENCE

» A discussion on war tactics by the youth of New Jersey, U.S.A., sent a 14-year-old negro boy seriously wounded to Christ Hospital. He was the victim of a bullet fired'by a white companion. His 16-year-old assailant was held on a charge of atrocious assault. ■ The Jersey City police pieced together a strange story of a friendship that has lasted for four years de- ■ spite a long-standing difference ot opinion on war and on army strategy. What the difference of'opinion is the police were not able to learn. They did learn, however, that despite the bullet wound inflicted by his friend, the negro boy felt that it was nothing but a mistake, and that his •friendship for the boy would not allow' him to press charges. The boys started but one day for a shot, each' carrying a single-shot, .22-calibre target rifle. On the way they talked, and their talk eventually came to the subject of war —war in Europe, in the United States, in Japan and China, and in Ethiopia. The subject of war tactics and what might happen on the battlefield then arose, and soon, as Bonner explained it to the police, they had decided on a "war" of their own, "just for.the fun of it." At a place .in the Jersey meadows the boys- picked their spots, about sixty or seventy yards from each other, and at a prearranged signal the hostilities began. Suddenly one boy let out a cry and fell over on his side. The white boy rushed to a nearby house and called the police, and the negro boy was taken to the hospital.