The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1878-02-04

\
bill 'to reorganize the army of the United
States" We advise some democrat who
takes an interest in the next Presidential
election to bring in as soon MS possible
bill .'to reorganize the democratic party"
and to take care that the very first section
shall provide for the immediate retirement
on half pay of General Banning and several
other prominent commanders of the demo-
cratic forces.
General Banning's bill is ingeniously con-
! trived on the model of the well known re-
ceipt for curing dog of fts-to cut off his
tail close up behind his ears. The General
has evidently spent many sleepless nights
over this bill He is cock-sure that the
army is dangerous to our liberties; he Is
clearly friend of freedom and devoted to
the preservation of our present admirable
form of government; he has seen with grief
unutterable that the people are asleep, as 1T
were; resting iii a fatal security; living in
fools paradise, SO to speak, and that to
tell them frankly and squarely that the
army ought to be destroyed would be to.
,, make himself laughing stock. Hence he
has with great labor and pains brought forth
measure enticingly labelled economy"
but warranted to kill, just as he would wrap
a morsel of strychnine in piece Of meat to
offer to wornout and superAuous family
dog whom no one had the heart to knock
over with bludgeon.
Is the army dangerous to our liberties?
Ought it to be destroyed, or to be so placed
that trivial dispute in Congress may at
any time disband it? This is evidently
General Banning's belief it is the motive
of his BILL He has seen parts of the army
put to very bad uses in the Southern States,
and with curious blindness at once con-
cludes that its existence is peril to free
dom that it is a dangerous weapon in the
hands of the Executive. He does not APP
pear to see that the misuse of the army in
the South. Vhich we opposed as strenu-
ously as he, was done not against but by
the consent of Congress that it is a weapon
which the Executive is powerless to use or
misuse unless Congress, which means the
people, consents that, for instance if the
army to-day had four times its present num-
bers the President would not dare to use
it to interfere in the States except to exc
cute laws adoptQ by Congress and to do
the will of the national legislature. He
does not appear to see, either, that
it was not the number Of the troops
stationed anywhere in the South which
made them formidable in the hands OF those
who misused them, but the mere presence
OF the flag The people of New Orleans
could have.overpowered with but slight
effort the handful Of federal soldiers who
under the late administration guarded the
State House and Packard; it was because
that little squad represented the authority
of the United States--the determination Of
Congress, not the mere will of the Presi-
dent-that they were safe against attack and
destruction.
There is no excuse, therefore, for the ex-
traordinary forty-frst section, which de-
clares that if Congress shall refuse or neg
lect to make appropriations for the army
''such refusal or neglect shall be deemed
equivalent to an express act for the aboli-
ton of the military establishment and the
army shall be forthwith disbanded." The
people Of the United States have always
thought it expedient and wise to maintain
the skeleton of an army organization. They
have never kept under pay large
military force in time of peace, but they
hive willingly kept up considerable body
of specially trained officers, whom they
have put to many and various uses, aside
from those purely military, SO that they
.,l~ of no III lar Tbaro Sc ~,
stance, great public work in this country
which does not owe much to the engineer
officers Of the army ; and the army has in
fact done very much more important work
in our many years Of peace than fight Ind
ians and guard the border line. Scarcely
any one is SO ignorant as not to know this.
The statutes, therefore, prescribe the or.
ganization OF the army as permanent in
stitution. The officers, from General Sher-
man down, do not serve by the year, they
serve for life and when the last Congress
got into squabble over the Army Appropri-
alton bill, and that failed to pass, no one
supposed that therefore the army was not to
be paid. Everybody understood that their
pay was delayed, but that the present Con-.
gress would appropriate it as matter of
course, and that the machine, so valuable
and important in many ways was not to be
broken up. Thoughtful citizens, who have
seen that this permanence lends character
to the service and gives the government the
command at very low price of body Of
trained, highly cultivated officers, will see
in this attempt Of Mr.. Banning only an act
of ignorant brutality.
Nor is the plea of economy any stronger.
The bill, we are told will save us five or
six millions. In the first place, this is not
true. The mere frontier and Indian work.
of the army requires, according to the testi-
mony of experts, that it should be at least