The Morristown gazette. [volume] (Morristown, Tenn.) 1867-1920, 1877-05-02
A STANDING ARMY.

1he army OF the United States,
asst year, cost the people forty-one
millions of dollars. There are, in
round numbers, twenty thousand
men in service. The question comes
up naturally, what use have we for
such an army? We are at peace.
We have no war on hand and none
threatened. It is true few thiev-
ing Indians on the frontier make an
occasional raid on the settlements,
murder some of the settlers and car
ry off their property, but the regular
army is, and always has been useless
in an Indian fight. Five hundred
frontiersmen, well armed and left to
their own shrewdness, can and will
whip more redskins than ten thous-
and soldiers organized in a regular
army. More than one hundred
years experience in fighting these
people ought to have convinced our
Government that heavy battaIlions
on the frontier only cost the people
millions of dollars without any ad-
vantage.
Well, then, as we are at peace
with all the world and are likely to
remain so, what use have we for a
standing army Of twenty thousand
men, maintained at an annual ex-
pense of more than forty millions of
dollars? The plain, prac teal, COM
nonsense farmers and mechanics of
the country will be apt TO answer,
1--WE have no use for it." The army
ought to be Immediately disbanded
and these twenty thousand able
bodied. healthy men, put to work in
the fields and workshops, raising
corn and potatoes, or building houses
and making furniture.
So Mr.. Hayes seems to be start
ing out i'll his career as a non-partiz-
an President, and as he has promis-
ed to bring about reform in all de-
partments of the Government, would
it not be an excellent idea for him
to abolish the standing army of the
United States? We mean abolishit
entirely. Let every man retire to
private life and go to work, aud thus
become q producer in the Govern
ment instead of a consumer Of the
industry of private citizens. This
would, indeed, be splendid measure
of reform, and one in which the bust
ness men would sustain him, almost
unanimously. If any trouble should
arise, the people stand ready to vol
unteer. Forty-eight hours notice of
danger to our country from foreign
enemy will bring a million of men
into the feld-men ready and will
ing to fight for their country, and
men, too, who can whip their weight
in wild cats. As to the Indians, a
few thousand scouts might be EN-.
ployed by the Government at small
pay, who would soon settle accounts
with Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse, and
all the rest; and they would do it
without any great battles being
fought, or any fuss being made about
it.
So, taking every thing into con-
sideration- particularly as the
South is not to be held under mill
sary surveillance any longer-we
think our standing army is a useless
as well as an exceedingly expensive
ornament, and ought to be dispensed
with. Let Mr.. Hayes inaugurate
the era of peace by mastering every
soldier out of the service of the
United States, and bidding every
able-bodied, healthy man in all the
broad limits OF the Union TO go to
work. We hope LIE win 10 it, though
we doubt it, as he has never as yet
called on US for our advice upon the
subject of standing armies in time of
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