Origins of Orwells Saying about 'Rough men' Guarding Pacifists in the Night

[JimBowie1958]

"We sleep soundly in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm." - George Orwell ????

Above is the common quotation, but it is misattributed. Grenier wrote something similar in the Washington Times in the early 90's, but he paraphrased Orwell, creating a composite from various statements by Orwell.

Here is some interesting history of that saying:
People Sleep Peacefully in Their Beds at Night Only Because Rough Men Stand Ready to Do Violence on Their Behalf |

The phrase comes from Orwells understanding of Rudyard Kipling who wrote in a poem called 'Tommy': (From the QI reference above)...

"I went into a public-’ouse to get a pint o’beer,
The publican ‘e up an’ sez, “We serve no red-coats here.”
The girls be’ind the bar they laughed an’ giggled fit to die,
…
O makin’ mock o’ uniforms that guard you while you sleep
Is cheaper than them uniforms, an’ they’re starvation cheap;
An’ hustlin’ drunken sodgers when they’re goin’ large a bit
Is five times better business than paradin’ in full kit." ...

In 1942 Orwell published an essay about Rudyard Kipling in which he referred to a phrase in the poem “Tommy” [RFGO]:

"A humanitarian is always a hypocrite, and Kipling’s understanding of this is perhaps the central secret of his power to create telling phrases. It would be difficult to hit off the one-eyed pacifism of the English in fewer words than in the phrase, ‘making mock of uniforms that guard you while you sleep’."

In the same essay Orwell made a statement about Kipling that thematically overlapped the later misattributed phrase. Orwell referred to “less civilized” men whereas Grenier referred to “rough men” [RFGO] [YQGO]:

"He sees clearly that men can only be highly civilized while other men, inevitably less civilized, are there to guard and feed them."

Happy 4th of July and God bless America and the troops that defend her!

 

[jwoodie]

Interesting, and applicable to a wider scope than just the military.

 

[asaratis]

Here. I will sign off for you. See below.

 

[daveman]

"He sees clearly that men can only be highly civilized while other men, inevitably less civilized, are there to guard and feed them."

John Stuart Mill covered that, too:

"War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself."