The New Army of the United States

IT is not too much to say that the mass of the people of the United States, particularly those of the Eastern and Southern states, realized that they possessed a regular army only when war was declared with Spain, on April 28, 1898. There were few persons not actually connected with the federal troops who could tell offhand how many regiments there were, or how and where they were employed. Not until the Washington Centennial parade of 1889 and the Columbus celebration processions of 1892 did New York see any large number of regular troops, except when the last honors were paid to General Grant. Boston, Philadelphia, St. Louis, Cincinnati, San Francisco, and many other large centres saw only small bodies at great intervals. Chicago became aware of their presence in numbers when they ended the railroad strike in 1894, as they had ended the Pittsburg riots in 1877, only to fold their tents and steal silently away to their lonely frontier garrisons.

From 1870 until 1898, ten regiments of cavalry, five of artillery, twenty-five of infantry, and one battalion of Engineers, the Signal Corps and Hospital Corps, in all about 28,000 men, comprised the military over which the United States alone had control, and which had no affiliation with any particular state or states, either in the matter of recruiting or names, since they were designated only by numbers, as the First, Second, or Third United States Regiment of Infantry, or Cavalry, or Artillery. During this period, practically all of the cavalry and infantry were on the frontier safeguarding the pioneers as these took the Indian’s land from him by hook or by crook, — generally by crook. When the greed or cruelty of the settlers or his own innate savagery and sense of wrong drove the Indian to the warpath, it was the regular soldier who went after him. For the pleasure of thus acting as buffer and policeman the soldier quite often gave his life. Indeed, the number of his kind whose death can be laid at the doors of corrupt or incorrupt Indian agents would make the American casualties at the battle of Santiago seem trifling. Very frequently, too, the soldier had to put up with a fire in the rear from the high-minded and praiseworthy Eastern friends of the Indian, who often were unaware that in nine cases out of ten the army officers were the redskins’ best friends, and were absolutely sincere in their repugnance to the killing which went on from time to time, — at the expense of the army. Even the stirring and tragic events of these campaigns failed to attract much attention in the East and South, unless they were of the magnitude of the Thornburgh or the Custer massacre. But the work was well done, for all its lack of trumpeting. General Sheridan said that any other country than the United States would have employed at least 70,000 troops in the Indian wars from 1875 to 1877. As it was, probably not more than 15,000 men actually took part in them. None the less, the army made the opening up of the West possible as fast as the tide of immigration from the East swelled in upon the prairies.

With the Pine Ridge campaign of December, 1890, and January, 1891, the Indian wars on a large scale probably ended. About the same time the cavalry and infantry began to move eastward or to concentrate in large garrisons. In 1889 a cavalry troop took station east of the Mississippi for the first time since the Civil War or early reconstruction days. Fort Myer near Washington, Fort Sheridan near Chicago, Fort Ethan Allen near Burlington (Vermont), Fort Crook near Omaha, and other barracks, sprang into existence, while still others were rejuvenated and given enlarged garrisons. This was in accordance with a new policy of putting troops near the great centres of population and of railways. Here they are ready for service in case of serious strikes or disorder, and can be moved quickly in any direction. The policy is the correct one from the point of view of strategy and effectiveness ; it was called by Mr. Bryan, in the campaign of 1900, a “menace to the workingmen of great cities. ”

To these larger barracks came companies of infantry and troops of cavalry from one or two company posts scattered all over the West, and now abandoned forever. Some forts bearing historic names were torn down by the neighboring farmers almost overnight. The remainder are falling to pieces and are disappearing from the earth as have the stagecoach, the pony rider, the Indians of Sitting Bull and Chief Joseph, and the Bret Harte pioneers, — a world in which the lonely garrisons often played a leading part.

But the troops that abandoned the small posts were a fine, hardy lot, accustomed to long marches : the cavalry ready to ride a hundred and odd miles in twenty-four hours to rescue imperiled comrades, and the infantry inured to campaigns with the snow deep underfoot and the temperature thirty or forty degrees below zero. The “unit of service ” was almost always the company of forty or fifty men, which generally marched, lived, and fought alone. The captains were, until the nineties, veterans of the Civil War, good disciplinarians and “sticklers ” in keeping up military etiquette. The lieutenants were for the most part graduates of West Point, often discouraged and sometimes demoralized by the lonely life on the prairies and the desperately slow promotions. Battalion drills were possible only at the larger posts ; regimental ones only at Forts Leavenworth and Riley and one or two other places. Manœuvres on a large scale occurred in 1886 and 1894. In a number of instances, regiments organized during the Civil War or at its close met for the first time as a whole when assembled at Tampa or elsewhere en route to Cuba.

In view of the army’s thirty years of this kind of training, it was fortunate for the United States that the Cuban campaign in 1898 was one which could be fought largely by company officers and by the men themselves. There was little or no strategy in the attack on Santiago, and the tactics — that is, the movements in the face of the enemy — were made much like those of the Indian fights by the absence of a proper plan of attack, the nature of the jungle, and the consequent scattering of brigades and regiments. The enlisted men separated and fought much as they and their predecessors had scattered and battled in Arizona’s cañons and Montana’s mountains, and the way they bore themselves was only what was expected by those who knew the service. Even when their officers were shot down, blacks and whites went on, not only because of their non-commissioned officers, trained to assume responsibility, but because of the spirit of obedience and the discipline licked into them by their company officers on the wind-swept parade grounds and the sun - dried mesas of the West. The hard character of the service from 1866 to 1889, and the men sent out from West Point during that time, kept the heart and the limbs of the army sound and vigorous. The inborn initiative and adaptability of the American soldier, traits so lacking in European armies and so extremely important in modern warfare, carried the army safely and victoriously through its greatest test since 1865.

During all this period when the cavalry and the infantry were serving in the West and the artillery for the most part in the antiquated forts of the seacoast, their needs were supplied by a number of staff departments, each having a headquarters, presided over by a brigadier-general in the War Department. Thus the Adjutant-General’s Department performed, in brief, the general clerical work of the army, attending to the promotion, assignment, transfer of officers, etc., while the Inspectors-General reported upon the efficiency of the troops. The Judge-Advocate-General’s Department dealt with the courts-martial of officers and men, while the Pay Department performed the functions indicated by its name, and the Medical Department concerned itself with the health of the troops and the supply of medicines and hospitals. The Quartermaster’s Department furnished the animals and their forage, the quarters for men and beasts, the clothing of the men, their blankets and beds ; but not their food, for this was the duty of the Commissary Department, and not their knives and forks and tin plates, for this was the function of the Ordnance Department. Besides this, the Ordnance officers, as indicated by their designation, selected and made the pistols and rifles and cannon furnished to the troops, and took and still take as many years in doing this as is comportable with their comfort. Indeed, the subdivision of duties herein briefly indicated is in force today in all the departments mentioned. In addition, there are the chaplains, anomalous fighting disciples of the Prince of Peace, never rising beyond the rank of captain, that humility may not be wanting among them ; Signal Corps officers, whose troops, like themselves, are trained in constructing and using cables, telegraph and telephone lines, communicating by flags, etc.; and last, but not least, the Engineers, almost wholly occupied with supervising river and harbor improvements, with the lighthouse service, and with other civil duties, but always deeply concerned for the good name of their corps, composed as it is of the honor graduates of West Point.

The reader, particularly if he be a man of affairs, will not fail to notice a certain antiquarian character about the subdivision of the duties of these staff departments, and especially in the functions of those known as the “supply ” departments. Like many customs of the American service, this system is almost wholly an inheritance from the days when George Washington served with the redcoats instead of against them. That the staff systems of England and the United States are far apart to-day does not deny their common origin or the sacredness of both institutions. So carefully guarded was our own, and so unchanging the tasks it had to perform in supplying and caring for 25,000 men in the West, that none of the engineers who ran the machinery would admit that it needed reconstruction from top to bottom, or even overhauling. If you criticised it, you were informed that it had always done its duties well. If you feared for its ability to withstand the strain of a war, you were told of what Montgomery Meigs did for Grant’s and Sheridan’s and Sherman’s armies. If you remarked that business methods had changed, and that the department store now supplied under one management what numerous shops did before, you were told that the government’s military department store must be an exception for innumerable reasons, principally because it had to do with soldiers.

Turning to the superintendents, the floor-walkers and clerks of these little coördinated army shops, you found that they had life positions, and were as indifferent to the wants of their patrons as the employees of a private mercantile house are eager to find out the desires of the public. Since those who dealt with the army supply stores were forced to take the goods given them,and did not have to pay for what they got, the managers and clerks worked off the same old stocks year after year with but little change. Nor did the salesmen generally trouble to inquire whether their customers’ needs had changed. Thus it took the Ordnance Corps more than a quarter of a century to find a rifle to take the place of the Springfield of Civil War days. That it was only by good luck that the Krag-Jörgensen was in the hands of the regular troops before the war with Spain is shown by the fact that the Ordnance Corps sent the cavalry to the front with antiquated pistols, and the artillery with inferior cannon and smoke - creating powder. One of the two volunteer regiments taking part in the battle of Santiago was an easy mark because of its Springfield rifles and its black powder. The Spanish army, despite its corrupt War Department, was better armed in every branch of the service than its enemy from the home of Colt, Hotchkiss, Gatling, and Maxim. In short, the staff officers of the American army were out of sympathy with the line, because they were transferred to the various departments from regiments as first lieutenants or captains, and never served with troops in the field again. Under these circumstances they naturally lost touch with the “man behind the rifle.”

Moreover, there was lacking in the American military organization what in foreign services they term the “brains of the army, ” — a general staff. There was no proper coördination of the various staff departments, each of which was jealous of the other. All of them were fairly given up to red tape and to the habit of wielding as much political influence as they could pick up in the lobby of the Capitol. No department or set of officers was empowered to see that the various staff corps coöperated intelligently, and nobody planned for the future, not even when war clouds were on the horizon, since it was nobody’s duty. Least of all was it the task of the commanding general, who, as a result of a century of rivalry and friction with the adjutants-general and the civilian Secretaries of War, found himself practically without power. While the navy was planning months in advance for the conflict with Spain the army sat still, even though Secretary Alger was, with Roosevelt and Leonard Wood, certain that war was coming, and eager for it to begin. Nobody ascertained how many or what ships were available for transports ; nobody inquired what the best port was from which troops could sail for Cuba, and what its railroad connections ; nobody cared where the volunteer armies should camp, or even wondered where arms and clothing should be got to make the levies soldiers as far as outward appearances were concerned. Nor did any one dream of drawing up in advance a list of worthy National Guard officers to be given rank in the volunteers, or one of worthy civilians, or even of picking out the names of the regular officers to be appointed to generalcies at the outbreak of hostilities. These and a thousand and one other things were left until the war was pending or declared, and were then done in a hurried and slipshod manner.

If General Alger is able to make out something of a case for himself in his recently published defense of his administration of the War Department, it is not because of any foresight on his part. For lack of that, and of any efforts to prepare for the emergency, history will certainly indict him, at the same time that it gives him credit for the remarkable things achieved by the tact, ingenuity, and energy of many of the men under him. It will find plenty to condemn in the management of the war, such as the dumping of Shafter’s 20,000 men upon the dock at Tampa, upon which there was only one man who knew to which transport each regiment was assigned, and this man indistinguishable in the mob around him. For this and other inexcusable blunders, most of the blame will be laid squarely upon the antiquated staff system, the absence of a general staff, and the politics which were the bane of the army from its foundation until 1901. No War Department administration, however capable, taking office on April 1, 1898, could have passed through the ordeal of the war without making many grave and costly blunders. With war declared, it became a question of accomplishing things at any price, in any way or shape that suggested itself, since no one had thought to look ahead.

To add to the War Department’s difficulties, the regular army was increased just after the war began. In March, 1898, two regiments of artillery had been added, making seven in all. On April 26, 1898, the infantry regiments were increased from ten to twelve companies and given an additional major. This was temporary legislation for war time only, but it was made permanent by the law of March 2, 1899, at which time the artillery regiments were enlarged to fourteen batteries, and the infantry regiments received a third major. As a large majority of the regular army took part in Shafter’s expedition, and returned to the United States depleted by the casualties of the war and by many retirements of aged or disabled officers, it was necessarily reorganized as hastily as possible. As soon as filled up, without waiting for them to be drilled and disciplined or completely officered, the regiments were hurried to Cuba or to the Philippines in the early months of 1899, and the service was still disorganized when, on August 1st of that year, Elihu Root became Secretary of War.

Ordinarily the history of the army has been divided into epochs by its foreign wars and the Civil War. Thus there was a new army after the War of 1812, and a changed army following the war with Mexico. The spirit of the regular army, which was rebuilt in 1866 and 1870 from the best material available from the great volunteer armies of the Civil War, was as distinct and different from that existing in the “ old army ” “ before the war ” as it could well be, considering that it was an outgrowth of the service in which Grant, Sherman, Sheridan, Lee, Stuart, Jackson, and a host of other famous Americans were lieutenants and captains. The customs and traditions, equipment and uniforms, were all changed, and the service was far more modern and up to date as a result of the long struggle between the North and South. So the war with Spain will mark in many minds the ending of another army epoch, a final dramatic change from frontier work and Indian campaigns to oversea service in tropical climes, varied, and, it is to be hoped, speedily followed by life in large garrisons devoted to professional advancement and incessant planning for future periods of activity.

But the historian who looks beneath the surface will be more inclined to date the rise of the present “new army ” of the United States from the day when Mr. Root took office than from the dramatic events of 1898. What makes the “new army,” as the term is used in the service, is not merely the appointment of a large body of new officers, but the development of new ideas and new customs and new theories ; and Mr. Root made more reforms his own within two or three months after taking office than had occurred to all the Secretaries of War since 1866. Just why Mr. Root should have had this desire to alter existing conditions at his age, and to go in for a radical change, would be an interesting study for a psychologist. It is of course true that few of Mr. Root’s reforms have originated with him. Mr. Daniel S. Lamont, for instance, recommended the consolidation of the supply departments and four-year details for chiefs of staff bureaus. There were also many young officers in whose blood the unsettling microbe of progressiveness had found a lodging, and who urged from time to time the very reforms which are now being undertaken. But Mr. Root was the first Secretary to take office with a clear conception of the fact that the machine over which he was placed was wholly behind the military times, and that its management in the past had been almost a fraud upon the public, if that term can be applied to the spending of large sums upon an obsolete system, when the taxpayer is entitled to the most economical and most modern military machine to be had for his money.

How quickly Secretary Root realized the great needs of the service is apparent from his first annual report, written in November, 1899, or within four months after entering President McKinley’s Cabinet. In this document he promptly came out for radical improvements in the organization of the army, and laid down the hitherto unknown doctrine in War Department circles, that “the real object of having an army is to provide for war. ” The contrary, he declared, “is really the theory upon which the entire treatment of our army proceeded for the thirty - three years between the Civil War and the war with Spain. Present utility was the controlling consideration, and the possibility of war seemed at all times so vague and unreal that it had no formative power in shaping legislation regarding the army. . . . The result did not include the effective organization and training of the army as a whole for the purposes of war. This was not because the army did not wish such organization and training, but because it was not permitted to organize and train for that object. The army has many able, educated, and competent officers who have thought much upon the subject and deeply regretted this condition, but who have been unable to secure a change.”

In preparing an army for war, Secretary Root thought that at least four things were involved : first, systematic study by responsible officers of plans for action under all contingencies. By this he meant general staff work, careful instruction in the larger problems of military science, of logistics, and of national defense. His second premise was the preparation of material of war ; his third the advancement of officers by selection according to capacity ; and his fourth the training of officers and men in large bodies, under conditions approximating those of war time. Mr. Root’s specific recommendations were also four in number, and comprised the establishment of an army war college, the ordering of every officer in the army to this college for a stated part of his career, the detailing of all staff officers from the line for four or five years instead of giving them permanent appointments, and the modification of the existing system of promoting officers by seniority only.

Of these reforms, two — the establishment of a system of higher education together with a general staff, and the principle of an interchangeable line and staff — go to the root of the evils from which the army has suffered, and Mr. Root recurred to them in general terms in his annual report of the following year. Although he expressly stated that his plans for the modernization of the service did not include a reorganization of the army, the final adoption of these reforms involves a complete change in the spirit and point of view of the entire corps of officers, and a readjustment of the staff departments. He could have recommended only one other reform of greater importance, — the banishment of politics from the administration of the army ; and this has already come about through the action of President Roosevelt and of Mr. Root himself. These three were the fundamental alterations for which the progressive officers had been pining for decades. Most of Mr. Root’s other reforms, suggested or introduced, are subsidiary or correlated to the three mentioned above.

When Secretary Root assumed office, in 1899, the Western state volunteers, which together with a few regular regiments formed the first army in the Philippines, had returned home and been mustered out. It had been hoped that the reorganized regular regiments which, as stated above, were rushed to the Philippines in the first four months of 1899 would be sufficient to end the war with the Filipinos. As this did not prove to be the case, the War Department reluctantly began the organization of the twenty-five United States volunteer regiments which helped to carry on the war until their disbandment last spring, in accordance with the act of March 2, 1899, which created them. Of these twenty-five regiments, twelve were raised under Mr. Root’s régime. The announcement on August 17, 1899, of their impending organization was accompanied by the names of the colonels, lieutenant-colonels, and majors selected for them, nearly all of whom were officers of the regular army. This unusual action was taken by Secretary Root in order to forestall the tremendous onslaught of politicians and of officers with “pulls ” which would have been certain to follow the mere statement that more regiments were to be recruited. By making the administration’s intention a secret, Mr. Root was able to select the field officers on the basis of merit only, particularly in the case of the colonels, all of whom were active and vigorous regular captains, who had earned the favor of the War Department in one way or another. Thus early in his conduct of the Department Mr. Root showed his desire to eliminate politics ; and, as his feeling in this matter seems never to have changed, the occasional lapses from the rule of selection and advancement for merit only must be laid to other causes or other persons, or to easily explainable errors of judgment.

It remained for President Roosevelt, however, firmly to establish the “merit rule ” in the military service, which he did by a simple unofficial pronouncement from the White House in November last, and by the statement in his annual message that “every promotion and every detail under the War Department must be made solely with regard to the good of the service and to the capacity and merit of the man himself. No pressure, political, social, or personal, of any kind will be permitted to exercise the least effect in any question of promotion or detail ; and if there is reason to believe that such pressure is exercised at the instigation of the officer concerned, it will be held to militate against him. In our army we cannot afford to have rewards or duties distributed, save on the simple ground that those who by their own merits are entitled to the rewards get them, and that those who are peculiarly fit to do the duties are chosen to perform them.” He thus put the army on the same footing as the classified civil service and the navy, without any legislation and, so far, without any perceptible friction with the Congressional place-hunters, who seemed to abide by the new order of things military as soon as they discovered that all patronage-seekers were treated alike. President Roosevelt’s action thus demonstrated the correctness of the sharp criticisms of previous Presidents and Secretaries because of their tolerance of favoritism in the army, when they could have ended it at any time by simply posting a notice that every officer using patronage to obtain advancement or comfortable details away from his regiment would be placed upon the Department’s black list. The ease with which this remarkable and far-reaching reform was accomplished should not, however, make the public overlook the courage it called for, or fail to give to Mr. Roosevelt and to Mr. Root the great credit they deserve for their stand against the politicians.

Probably no one unfamiliar with army conditions can realize how far this evil of politics had gone toward bringing men to the front, particularly in the staff departments, who were either unfit or who shirked hard work. How greatly it had discouraged manly officers, with or without influence, who wished to rise by merit alone could not well be stated briefly. It is a fact, however, that dozens and scores of officers would gladly have resigned because of it, had they not had dependent families or felt themselves unfitted for civil life. So far had this favoritism spread that people who know the army only from this side have been at a loss to understand why it was as sound as it proved itself to be during the war with Spain, and why there was not far more inefficiency than actually appeared in the various branches of the service. Few outside the army know how close are the ties which bind the service together, and how quickly it becomes known that Lieutenant Brown has been promoted to a staff captaincy because his wife is a sister of a Senator from Arkansas, or Florida, or Oregon. Still fewer can estimate the bitter disappointment and discouragement in the army at the appointment of Frederick D. Grant from civil life, of Frederick Funston, an untrained soldier of fortune, and of Dr. Leonard Wood from the Medical Department, as brigadier-generals, over the heads of hundreds of better qualified officers of longer service.

But if the public has not realized all this and the importance of the action taken by President Roosevelt, the army is most grateful to him for making the service a profession in which every officer, whether rich or poor, of humble origin or with distinguished family connections, whether with or without influence, has an equal chance with every other officer to obtain high rank and win the rewards of efficiency and faithfulness to duty. In 1900 the writer met an able young officer who was deliberately planning to toady to men of influence, to cultivate social relations with people of prominence, and to get details away from his regiment to Washington or to the staffs of generals, etc., simply because he felt that this was the only road to success in his newly adopted profession. Unworthy as this attitude seems, the career of two officers of his own regiment, who had not been near it for ten years or more, yet had received high rank in the volunteers, bore out his contention that this was the only way to get ahead in the army. Now this young officer is planning his life quite differently, and is already making out his application to be one of the first class at the War College, or, failing that, to be detailed to the Infantry and Cavalry School at Fort Leavenworth. He is anxious to show that he has in him sufficient ability to warrant his getting upon the list of distinguished officers to be called upon first in an emergency. This list, also originated by Secretary Root, will comprise the names of officers below the rank of colonel who have : (1) heretofore exhibited superior capacity, application, and devotion to duty, the names to be selected by a board of officers convened for that purpose ; and (2) who have been reported as doing specially meritorious work in the service schools, other than the officers’ schools at posts ; and (3) who at any time specially distinguish themselves by exceptionally meritorious service.

“It will be the aim of the Department to make this register the basis of selection for details as staff officers, military attachés, and for special service requiring a high degree of professional capacity, ” is Secretary Root’s terse summary of this stimulating change, which might so easily have occurred to any one of his predecessors, and which alone made many young officers, like the one cited above, suddenly realize that they had unconsciously been transferred to what is indeed a “new army.”

With regard to the education of the army and to the War College, Secretary Root has from the first adopted the European view, that as far as an army’s officers are concerned the service should be one great educational system, each officer being constantly trained and professionally instructed until the day of his retirement from active service. The perfection with which this theory has been worked out in the German army is one of the most important reasons for the extraordinary and unequaled efficiency of the Emperor’s great military machine. If a similar system was needed in the American army before the war with Spain, it is all the more demanded now that more than thirty-three per cent of the officers are men who have come into the service since the war with Spain, mostly from the ranks, from civil life, or from the volunteers, nine tenths of them without such professional training as is obtained at West Point. In brief, Mr. Root has planned what he calls a “university system of military education, ” which shall include the various postgraduate schools existing prior to the war with Spain, with the officers’ schools at each military post, — hitherto known as the lyceums, and hitherto generally “unsatisfactory and futile, ” — as the first step in this educational ladder.

In his latest report Secretary Root describes his system of instruction as follows: —

“A General Service and Staff College, at Fort Leavenworth, Kans.

“A War College, for the most advanced instruction, at Washington Barracks, D. C.

“The War College shall be under the immediate direction of a board of five officers, detailed from the army at large, and the following ex officio members : the Chief of Engineers, the Chief of Artillery, the Superintendent of the Military Academy, the commanding officer of the General Service and Staff College. The War College Board shall exercise general supervision and inspection of all the different schools above enumerated, and shall be charged with the duty of maintaining through them a complete system of military education, in which each separate school shall perform its proper part. Such officers as shall be requisite to assist the board in performing its duties will be detailed from time to time for that purpose. It should be kept constantly in mind that the object and ultimate aim of all this preparatory work is to train officers to command men in war. Theory must not, therefore, be allowed to displace practical application.

“The officers’ schools at military posts and the General Service and Staff College will be open for instruction to officers of the National Guard of the several states, to former officers of volunteers, and to graduates of military schools and colleges which have had officers of the army as instructors. The special service schools will be open to officers of the National Guard and former officers of volunteers who shall furnish evidence to the War Department of such preliminary education as to enable them to benefit by the courses of instruction.

The college staff at the General Service and Staff College, Fort Leavenworth, will make report to the Secretary of War of qualifications of officers of the National Guard, ex - volunteers, and graduates of military schools and colleges, who shall have attended the college or shall apply for examination, and shall further certify whether or not they are qualified for service as officers of volunteers, specifying character of the service, whether line or staff, for which they are specially qualified. A special register of the names of persons so reported as qualified will be kept in the War Department.

“There shall be, besides the Military Academy at West Point, the following schools for the instruction of officers in the army: —

“1. At each military post an officers’ school for elementary instruction in theory and practice.

“2. Special service schools : —

“(a) The Artillery School, at Fort Monroe, Va.

“(b) The Engineer School of Application, Washington Barracks, D. C.

“(c) The School of Submarine Defense, Fort Totten, N. Y.

“(d) The School of Application for Cavalry and Field Artillery, at Fort Riley, Kans.

“ (e) The Army Medical School, Washington, D. C.”

As the “ special service ” schools already exist, Congress is only called upon to provide money for additional quarters for them, and for a home for the War College at Washington Barracks. The educational system can therefore practically go into operation as rapidly as the proper heads and faculties can be chosen for the institutions not already complete, and as fast as the exigencies of the Philippine service will permit. As a whole, Secretary Root’s plan is cheap, economical, and simple, and full of the greatest promise for the army, for which this change also means a complete revolution in its methods.

Inseparably connected with this educational system will be the proposed general staff, for which Secretary Root has provided in a bill sent by him to Congress on February 15th last. It will have the closest affiliation with the War College, and will be the goal of every ambitious officer in the service, as well as the best kind of a training school for the future generals of the army. It will be composed of a chief of staff with the rank of lieutenant-general, a major-general, a brigadier-general, four colonels, six lieutenant-colonels, twelve majors, and twelve captains, who will all be detailed to the general staff for four years, and then return to their permanent places in the new supply department or in the line, where they must serve two years before again going on general staff duty. Almost revolutionary is the provision abolishing the position of commanding general on the retirement of General Miles, — doing away with an office which has given rise to endless and frequently disgraceful quarreling between the civilian Secretaries and the senior generals. After General Miles leaves the active list the chief of staff will be selected by the President, to serve during the latter’s term of office ; thus insuring an officer who will not only be in sympathy with the commander in chief, but who will be de facto the military right hand of the President.

As for the general staff, it will have all the functions which have been exercised by similar bodies in European armies, besides absorbing those of the present Inspector - General’s Department. It will not only be the brains, but the eyes and ears of the service. Its officers will “consider the military policy of the country, and prepare comprehensive plans for the national defense and for the mobilization of the military forces in time of war ; and will consider and report upon all questions affecting the welfare and efficiency of the army, including organization, methods of administration, armament, equipment, transportation, supplies, distribution, mobilization, military preparation, plans of campaign, collection of military information, and such other professional matters as may be referred to them, ” — a sufficiently liberal grant of powers to suit the most fastidious. Had such a body existed before the war with Spain, there would have been no such scandals as marked our conduct of the military hostilities. Its creation by Congress will be momentous, for it will put the American service for once abreast of all others, and will have as marked an effect upon the future military history of this country as West Point has had upon that of the last hundred years. Probably nothing that Secretary Root can do in the future will bring him such credit and renown as will the establishment of the general staff.

The principle of an interchangeable line and staff, which Secretary Root first urged in 1899, has already been enacted into law by Congress. According to the statute of February 2, 1901, when a vacancy occurs in any staff department, except in the Engineers and Medical Department, it is to be filled by the detail of a line officer for a period of four years, after which he is to return to the line for a period of at least two years before again going on staff duty. In this way the managers and clerks of the great service stores will be kept in touch with their customers, the soldiers and officers of the line, and a large number of officers will be trained in staff work, and so be available for service with volunteers in case of war. Characteristically, however, Congress made this rule apply only after the many vacancies which it created in the enlarged staff departments, at the same time that it added five regiments of cavalry, five of infantry, and the equivalent of six regiments of artillery to the line, were filled by the spoilsmen with permanent appointees. As a result, the system will not be in force throughout some departments for many years ; but it will not be long before the system of appointing heads of departments for four years, already begun, will be in force everywhere. How desirable it is that the President should have greater powers in selecting chiefs of bureaus was admirably illustrated by the case of General Eagan, of “ embalmed beef ” memory, and by the working of this system in the navy.

Most men would be content with putting through so radical a reform of the staff departments as this. Not so Secretary Root. Like the magician of the inexhaustible pockets, he produces another reform proposal as soon as one has been adopted. One of his most radical and daring departures is a recommendation that the Quartermaster’s, Commissary, and Pay departments shall be consolidated into one great business organization. No other Secretary ever dared to attack the supply departments in this way, despite the fact that economy and sound business reasons have long demanded this very change. There is no such hydra - headed organization in the navy, and no such ridiculous division of duties in any private business in the United States. Custom alone makes for its retention. The officers of the departments involved have not been able to agree upon a scheme of consolidation, and whether their once invincible political influence will enable them to delay the adoption of Secretary Root’s plan for their consolidation, now before Congress, is, at this writing, yet to be seen.

From the first Secretary Root has endeavored to bring about closer relations between the regular army and the militias of the various states. His invitation to ambitious National Guard officers to attend post lyceums or the more advanced service schools is but a symptom of his friendly frame of mind. He intends to have them examined by regular officers, that the names of those qualified may be placed upon a list to be drawn upon in the event of war. He would also have the present antiquated militia law, which practically dates back to 1792, repealed, the annual federal appropriation increased, and the state troops rearmed with the weapons of the regular army. He is particularly desirous of bringing about joint encampments of large bodies of regular and state troops for annual manœuvres on a large scale, lasting a month if possible. In short, he is ready to meet the state authorities more than halfway in his effort to make those conditions impossible hereafter which confronted the War Department in 1898, in its dealings with the state troops. His idea has been that the relations between the regulars and volunteers, when again brought together in one force, “shall be such that it constitutes a homogeneous body, using the same arms, familiar with the same drill, answering to the same ideas of discipline, inspired by the same spirit, and capable of equal and even performance, and that the preparation of the regular army in time of peace for the event of war shall to the greatest possible intent inure to the benefit of the whole army, both regular and volunteer. ” From the military standpoint no exception can be taken to this ideal, particularly as it would make the regulars strongest where the volunteers are weakest. A bill embodying these views of Secretary Root has been introduced in each house of Congress, and has been warmly received by the press and the militia.

At one time during the last year there was felt to be grave danger of the War Department’s committing itself to an extremely radical proposal : the creation of a third body of troops as a national federal reserve, to stand between the regular army and the state troops, and to be under the sole control of the War Department. There was also a strong tendency in some quarters to change the character of the state troops by bringing them more under the control of the Department. Happily these fears were unfounded. A study of the question was undertaken by Assistant Secretary Sanger, and it led to a recognition of the fact that the genius and spirit of the American institutions are wholly against such a long step toward making this a military nation. For the prevention of internal disorder, it is desirable and necessary that the existing state troops should retain their historic status and be available only for internal defense, in repelling invasion and quelling civil strife, under orders either of the respective governors or of the President, until armies of volunteers can be raised.

But among the changes called for in the militia bills referred to above is a provision for the formation of a reserve of the regular army, similar to that of the English army. This represents the compromise which Secretary Root and Assistant Secretary Sanger have hit upon as a way of avoiding the creation of the new body of organized troops, to which it is believed that their thoughts first turned. Under this plan, there will be 100,000 unorganized men who have served in the regular army, the volunteers, or the National Guard, and who will be required to report once a year to some officer of the War Department during their enrollment period of five years. For this reporting they will receive ten dollars annually. While this plan presents some administrative difficulties, it has worked well in England, and has the merit of being comparatively inexpensive. Mr. Root’s bill also provides for the list, already referred to, of National Guard officers, graduates of military schools, or civilians qualified to take commissions in the volunteer army at the outbreak of war. The names of men qualified to serve in the supply departments are to be especially sought. Here Mr. Root has learned another lesson from the war with Spain. “ To send volunteers into camp or field under inexperienced officers, ” he says, “is simply to educate the officers at the expense of the lives and efficiency of the men.” Finally, the militia bill has the great merit of defining the status of the militia, which has hitherto been so unsatisfactory as to cause confusion and friction, and in at least one case has led to serious trouble between states and the federal government. What the War Department now aims at is to provide in advance, as far as possible, the machinery by which a volunteer army can be rapidly, effectively, and economically created.

There are various minor reforms to which Mr. Root has given his adherence. His plan of modifying the existing rule of promotion by seniority only, by the annual selection of a certain number of officers for advancement over the heads of others less industrious or less capable, is still on the carpet. President Roosevelt has urged this in his message, but it is difficult to think of a practical way of doing it in such a manner as to make favoritism and the use of social influence impossible. There would also be an ever present danger of inflicting great injustice upon some fine officers who, through no fault of their own, have lacked opportunities to show what is in them. Cases of this kind are no rarity to-day, but will occur at once to every officer. The ease with which military and naval matters become political ones or the subject of popular likes and dislikes, as in the cases of Rear-Admiral Schley and Lieutenant-General Miles, and even that of General Funston, presents still another danger to any system of promotion by selection.

To increase the efficiency of the army, and to end the enormous pressure now put upon the War Department for the promotion to brigadier-generals of a number of equally worthy old colonels and lieutenant-colonels, Secretary Root has prepared a bill which is also now before Congress. It provides for the retirement of all officers who have served thirty-five years and are veterans of two wars, the Civil and Spanish, with the next higher rank to the one they hold. The retirements, which are to be voluntary on the part of the 185 officers concerned, and “with the advice and consent of the Senate, ” would free the upper grades of a number of faithful but now worn-out officers who are too old and too conservative to be of much use to the army. Their leaving the active list would permit the advancement to the important positions of regimental commanders of a number of alert and vigorous officers now in the prime of life, and eager to demonstrate in the war colleges or in the field their fitness for higher rank. In many cases simple justice to worthy veterans dictates the passage of the bill, as well as the interests of the army.

Indeed, it is a long list of other desirable changes for the “new army ” which could be drawn up. Many officers hope that Secretary Root may soon be able to turn his attention to two matters which recent wars have shown to be of importance and which are in an exceedingly unsatisfactory state, — the individual training of the recruit and the question of proper regimental field transportation. The proposal to have the non-commissioned grades in the army made more respected and better paid positions will also appeal to him, without doubt. The final success of some of the reforms will of course depend largely upon the way they are treated by Congress and by Mr. Root’s and President Roosevelt’s successors, as well as upon the spirit in which they are received by the army itself. That they have the support of nine tenths of the officers to-day is certain. One captain, of wide acquaintance and of fourteen years’ service, writes upon this point : “I don’t imagine that Mr. Root is a man who cares very much, but all men must care some for the approval of their fellows ; and I know that the feeling for him, among a great crowd of officers who have never seen him, is one of intense and keen gratitude and of warm support and loyalty. ” If Mr. Root is able to instill into the new army, simultaneously with his other reforms, a fine spirit of devotion to the best interests of the service and a readiness to do one’s duty without fear or favor, the chances are that it will be in every way as excellent a service as the United States is entitled to. Much will depend upon the severity of the discipline enforced at the headquarters of the army. President McKinley, in his kindness of heart, could hardly be brought to dismiss an officer for drunkenness ; and the effect of this leniency is noticeable in many recent court-martial sentences, which have been utterly inadequate. Now that so many half-disciplined and, from the military point of view, half-educated officers have been commissioned, it is all the more important that every guilty officer should be dismissed without hesitation. Only in this way can the service be toned up after the demoralization of the recent campaigns and reorganization.

A prominent army official recently remarked, very frankly, that, as the service is now constituted, “the promotion boards do not examine, the survey boards do not survey, and the retiring boards do not properly retire.” A number of incompetent officers have been passed, and a number of disabled officers allowed to stay on the active list, simply because their fellows had not the heart to end their careers. The case of a field officer of artillery is known to the writer. He was passed by an examining board although he was physically unable to mount a horse because of an evident and incurable trouble. In this and other matters there has been lacking a spirit of responsibility to the service and a high sense of duty. Fidelity and courage on the field are never lacking, and cases of misappropriation of funds remarkably rare. But it has been considered no sin to shirk reading a paper at the post lyceum, or to read it in such a way as to fulfill the letter but not the spirit of the regulations. For this, of course, those in the “seats of the mighty ” have largely been responsible. General Miles himself has openly violated the regulations in regard to the assignment of aides - de - camp. His terrible rebuke from his superiors for another violation of the regulations may have been too severe for the particular offense which called it forth, but it will have in many ways a beneficial effect upon the service.

How important the question of the education of the new army is a glance at the artillery will show. It has been increased about one hundred and fifty per cent since 1898, and has suffered perhaps more in the way of getting green and untrained officers than the other branches of the line. It is organized under an entirely new system, and has under its charge forts and guns valued at $60,000,000. The technical training of the artillery officers in the handling of the torpedoes and the complicated electrical machinery and cannon which go to make up the equipment of a modern fort is important, but by no means as essential as that they should learn to perform their peace duties as well as those of the battlefield with that fidelity, devotion, and unvarying honesty in the smallest matters which they pledged by the acceptance of their commissions.

The future disposition and size of the army are things that no one can begin to foretell. At present Congress has fixed a minimum of 59,131 and a maximum of 100,000 men. On September 25, 1901, there were 84,513 men in the service, exclusive of 5000 native troops in the Philippines. By a singular but not unprecedented enactment, the right to fix the size between the two figures set by Congress is placed in the hands of the President, — a proceeding certainly never contemplated by the founders of this government nor by those who drew up the Constitution. At the present day the condition of affairs in the Philippines dictates the size of the army, and many officers believe that the maximum allowed must be raised if 30,000 men continue to be needed in the archipelago. Since troops can be kept in the Philippines for only two or three years, they feel that there must be three shifts, giving each regiment six years at home out of every nine.

If, as a growing number of Americans hope, the United States shall soon take what seems to these citizens the right and Christian action of withdrawing from the islands where it is so bitterly hated and opposed, the army can at once be reduced to the minimum, or to even smaller dimensions. So wonderfully fortunate is the United States in its geographical situation that it seems as if it could become embroiled with other nations only by its own action, as in 1898. With many countries of Europe a land war is a physical impossibility, and there is not one which would contemplate a conflict with the United States with equanimity. In the Atlantic and Pacific oceans the United States has the best of defenses. With enlightened statesmanship and the avoidance of such unnecessary conflicts as those of 1845 and 1898, the United States should be able to return to that traditional policy which kept it free from international entanglements for fifty-three years, during which time, with the exception of the Civil War period, its navy and army were at a minimum without the slightest detriment to its honor. During this period, it set a magnificent example to the entire world of an enlightened government which made the profession of arms one of the least important branches of the public service. Of all the great contributions of the United States to the upward progress of the world, there has been none finer than this.

With the troops out of the Philippines, the enormous military and naval expenditures could be greatly reduced from the $205,000,000, exclusive of $140,000,000 for pensions, paid out last year. The troops would be concentrated in large garrisons, ready for such riot, Indian, and police duty as so frequently fell to their lot in the period from 1865 to 1898. But whatever the fate in store for their army, and whatever its size, the people of the United States have an obvious right to get for their money an efficient, well-run, and modern military machine, such as they have not had in the past.

To this end Secretary Root and President Roosevelt’s reforms are of the greatest value. It has been the Secretary’s achievement to bring about and urge more reforms in his brief administration than did all his predecessors for fifty years, if not a century. As an example of what can be accomplished by an able and progressive man at the head of a great governmental department, Secretary Root’s administrative successes are worthy of the attention of all students of government. They are numerous enough to make it a patent fact that his work for the “new army ” has already made his administration memorable in army history.

Oswald Garrison Villard.