The New Orleans daily Democrat. [volume] (New Orleans, La.) 1877-1880, 1877-08-14

footing; indeed, many Of the regiments have
been maintained at the minimum Of rank and
file ever since 1869 The field and line officers
OF an infantry regiment are: one colonel, one
lieutenant colonel, one major, ten captains and
twenty lieutenants, and the regiment Is the
unit of both administration and service. The
number Of colonelcies will not be increased.
But
THE BATTALION SYSTEM
of the British army will be adopted, modified
only in minor particulars. It is proposed to
establish brigade depots," which will serve
for stations Of instruction for three regiments
each, and where "depot battalions" are to be
maintained, where recruits may be mustered
and drilled and from which men may be
drafted into the regular battalons, as the exi-
gencies of the service may require. Each
regiment rs to have two service battalons Of
ten companies each; or in other words, each
Of the old regiments is to be divested of its
character as q
UNIT OF EXECUTION,
transformed into q unit Of tradition and adj
ministrntion, embracing two executive units
or battalions of the same strength of the
regiment as now established At the Same
OF ono or two new battalions to each regi-
ment, as the exigencies OF the service may
require, SO that under the new regime the in
fantry regiment will consist of two full bat
talions of ten companies, each commanded
by lieutenant colonel, and complete in al
its appointments as service unit; or, 1t may
consist of four battalions. q
This is as brief space as I can put the new
programme into and give you clear under
standing of its scope. You observe that, in a
word it contemplates the abandonment Of
our present system which is. in fact, obso-
lete-and the adoption OF the new European
system Of execution, retaining the old forma-
tions only in name for the sake OF their tra-
ditions and for purposes of military admins
tration only. The resulting effect will be to
very nearly
DOUBLE THE PRESENT FORCE.
numerically, and to much more than double
| its effective capacity for the uses that the
future may develop.
| presume this programme will meet with
some resistance, but am confident that 1t
will go through. It will be supported almost
unanimously by the Republicans in both
branches, and the bondholding Democrates
from the North, Of the Hewitt school, are
very likely to manage in some way to
''LEr THE BILL PASS
even if they do not actively promote it by
voice and vote.
| It will be o strange commentary upon the
mutablity of human affairs If the first con-
siderable act of the Congress elected in our
Centennial year should be to establish q
standing army on the very model of that
army against the oppression Of whose bayo-
nets the fathers revolted hundred years
ago,
The ralying cry win be .'the maintenance
Of social order" All, well, that has been the
slogan of three separate
coUPs D'ETATs
In France within the last eig hty years. It Is
q good phrase; but it has been prostituted to
the basest ends of ambition, tyranny and
cruelty oftener and more successfully thar
any other phrase in language. We are very
likely to see it SO prostituted again. In the
meantime let labor grid up its loins and count
the cost. Capital does not propose to be
caught mapping again with nothing between
it's helpless money bags and the fury of the
mob
EXCEPT HARTRANFTs MILITIA.
i year from this time mob of strikers vii
find themselves confronted with different ad
versary from the one they encountered tive
weeks ago. j. Gould's newspaper In New
York not long ago remarked that in an ap
peal to brute force between classes II
this country the fortunes Of tho day
would be with the class who hat
money to hire soldiersi | shouldn'
wonder if that remark was pretty nea
, true. Ii it is true, why, then, the soone
the masses of the people are reduced to th'
slavery for which alone they are fit, the bet
ter it will be for all parties concerned; ant
the sooner we shall see that maintenance 0
social order" which has been SO often trans
lated into such synonyms as "usurpation,
"despotism" and oppression" A. G. b.