The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1878-06-29

House for tho increase Of sour poor, unpaid
starving army, doomed 10 many ia ys OF fur
Their starvation, while their numbers are re-
duoed by sickness and Indian warfare" the
printed evidence was before Congress that
the whole Of the Thirteenth Regiment Of In
fantry was in Pennsylvania, where 1t was
no moro wanted than it was in Connecticut
Sunday school; that tho Twelfth Regiment
was in California and Nevada, where IL was
not at all needed; that the Fourteenth was
principally In Salt lake City, whore IL was no
more required than IL was In New Haven;
that the Sixteenth were mostly quartered in
the midst OF tho wheat and corn farms OF
Kansas, idle IA tortolscs; that the Eight
zenith was in Indiana, New York. Pennsyl
vana, and Tennessee; that tho Twenty
second was in Pennsylvania except two
companies In Michigan, and the Twenty
third was mostly In tho city OF Lcaven
worth, Kansas, where soldiers are precisely
as much required as they are In Milwaukee.
At the moment GIBBoN made his alleged
wcak-handed fight. and when our " skeleton
OF an army was dangling from the scaffold
Of economy and bleaching In tho wind Of
starvation" there were available TO crush
the Nez Perces over ten thousand men lying
idle in different parts Of the country. Why
were they not used 2 For the very same
reason that they are not used now. They
are distributed through one hundred and
fifty different posts. At these the enlisted
men serve for commands for officers whose
homes, whose family residences. are these
military quarters. An officer without sol
diers TO command is absurd. An officers
Ia tix,u H., l..
Portable That principally is why GIBBoN
was short handed. And II HOWARD or any
other General is short handed now, In Ore
gon or Idaho, that is the reason, and there
is no other reason. There is an overabun-
dance Of soldiers for every real military
need; but the army officers will not let them
be used. For example, the headquarters OF
the First Artillery is Fort Adams, in Rhode
Island. This regiment Is as much part OF
the fashionable watering place OF Newport
as its Old Mill and Spouting Rock are. The
fort, the regimental band, the evening pa
rade, the uniformed officers, constitute a
peculiar and durable pleasure In this sum
mer home of the idle rich OF many cities.
Correspondingly, summer Newport opens
her doors wide to the officers OF the garri-
son. Nothing short Of an act OF Congress
could move that regiment. armed as in
fantry, out to Oregon TO fight the Bannock
Indians. And ten to one an act Of Congress
ordering the regiment there would be
evaded by the War Department. What
piercing little screams would vibrate the
old china in the parlors Of Newport at the
mention of the First Artillery's fighting In
dams, or anything else save the fiavorless
WEAKNESS of the summer rehash near Fort
Adams Of Fifth avenues winter life. A
thousand to one that regiment could not be
moved And the inability will certainly be
used in the next session OF this Congress as
an argument for literally filling out our
skeleton Of an army. "If GIBBoN had had
only one hundred more soldiers and 50 on,
and so on.
REDUCE THE ARMY TO TEN THOUSAND
MEN