The Cheyenne daily leader. [volume] (Cheyenne, Wyo.) 1870-1884, 1877-06-01
ARMY AND NAVY OFFICERS PAY.

ARMY AND NAVY OFFICERS PAY.
If the necessities for economy con-
tinue much longer, it might be just rs
well to abolish West Point and An
napolis academies. 1t is impossible to
perceive any good, reason why the gov
eminent should go to the expense of
paying for the education of cadets,
who, when graduated, are considered
| of no more worth than a common Ia
borer. Last year Secretary Robson
provoked much complaint in the naval
service by placing a number of officers
on waiting orders pay" on account
of the meagreness of the appropria-
ton. This year Secretary Thompson
has been obliged to increase that list,
and the consequence is that the officers
will be so reduced that they will have
to look elsewhere than to the govern.
ment, if they are not provided with
private fortunes, for means to sustain
life. The government owes these gen-
tlemen more than their education. If
it gives them that, it must be borne in
mind that they dedicate their lives to
its service. In most cases they are UNI
fitted for anything else. All men are
not so versatile that, having been
trained to n service or trade, they
can jump to another with ease and
gracefulness. Therefore, if it is not
proposed to find them employment
and there is plenty Of opportunity to
keep them busily employed-or give
them sufficient upon which to live, for
they must needs have food to subsist
upon rs well rs the rest of us, it would
be just rs well to stop turning new Off
GERS out of the academies.
We have to-day n navy that, in the
eyes of the seamen who have the honor
to man our wooden walls and iron cof-
fins, is q perfect disgrace to the Ameri-
can nation, inpoint of size, as compared
with the vessels in the service of ma
lions who have not that prestige that
we as Americans possess upon the high
seas. They are sheer hulks in many
respects, rotten and worthless, and I'M
6t to COPE with even the navies of such
powers rs Japan and China, and our
seamen, who are the finest drilled in a
service of this kind in the world. are
fully alive to the fact that, in the event
of a war, their ships would prove
nought but decisions and snares; that
the first discharge from the broadsides
of their turreted and steel-clad foes
woulk sink them beneath the waves-a
poor incentive for these men to re-
main in n service that has
been reduced and injured by the
magnates at Washington. who should
have known better when they set to
work to reduce the expenses of the ma
ton by economizing in this most vital
element of the country. The same may
be said Of the army-that has been re-
duced down to such short allowance of
rations that it has called forth the pent
up anger and Indignation of its militia
ry commander in most unmeasured
terms of censure and reproach, and
which he has not appropriately desig-
mated as ''the skeleton of an army"
whose officers and men are made to feel
ashamed of their position, to that eX-
tent that they have bat little heart to
continue longer as officers, or as pri-
Yates, to re-enlist.
The army has no means at its service,
and il our nations law givers continue
to reduce the expenses necessary to
maintain it in the field, the time will
come perhaps when they will bit
terly repent of their parsimony.
1t is not absolutely certain that
we may 60 to war, or that there
will be any danger of our having one
for the next century, but it is just as
well that we should be prepared, and
our army and navy appropriations must
and should be increased. In time of
peace, every nation but us, prepares for
war. At the commencement of the
internecine struggles that deluged our
country in the blood of its own people,
VT had allowed our army and navy to
become mere nonentities, and the
amount of money that was required to
put them in a serviceable condition, to
meet the ~exigencies of the occasion,
was double the amount that would have
been needed during the piping time of
peace, to have kept the service in full
fighting order.