Lancaster daily intelligencer. [volume] (Lancaster, Pa.) 1864-1928, 1882-06-07
Aanrastcl tll:rll,Qenret,
EVENING, JUNE 2, lss2.
The Retirement Bill.

"WEDNESDAY EVENING. JUNE z. 1852.
The Retirement Bill.
The Senate is considering bill which
retires all officers Of the army who have
reached the age of sixty-two. A similar
law has long been in operation in the
navy, and it would seem that if it is
good for one branch of the military ser
vice it is good for the other. But it is
a very debatable question whether it is
good for either; and especially whether
if officers should he retired at a fixed age,
sixty-two years, is not too early period
at which to release them from active
service.
The officers of the army generally
favor the proposed measure; the
younger ones because it gives them pro-
motion and those who are to be retired
do not object to it because a like law ap-
plies to them all, and no reflection is cast
upon the capacity of any beyond that
which is due to their declining years :;
and as balm for this reminder Of their
growing feebleness they are given good
salary with nothing to do. No doubt
great injustice is done to the active men
in the army by keeping the higher ranks
filled with men no longer capable of do
ing their full duty :; and so far as pro-
motion can be made more rpidly, by
wedding the active list of the aged, who
are also incapable, Il I'D thing is done
both for the efficient GERS and for the
service. But a gres,, ANY officers are
still vcrv efficient a! ty-twO ye:rs and
even at Il much gr :r age; and the
question is whethe. he service is i'm
proved Ey putting them away. The
country ought not to pay for services
Which it does not get if the capacity for
service remains. a retired list is good
but ti,,;e only seem to be properly placed
upon it who art ;Icapacitated for duty.
If we could CO... le that all officers, or
nearly all, are .lus incapacitated by
sixty-twO years of service, rule retiring
one ut that age wuuld be well enough.
But this is not the fact :; and such gen.
eral incapacity can hardly he predicated
of any age short of three score and ten.
We have now a retiring law which dis
charges from the active list all who are
pronounced incapable but it does not
appear to work satisfactorily. If it was
fairly and judiciously administered it
ought to answer the purpose. But it is
not so acted upon the army is full of
officers who do not do their duty. They
do not want to be retired, because 4
measure of stigma attaches to them for
premature failure of their powers
they do not 60 out in company with
those of their years. 1t is pleasanter to
he hung in company; and they muster
their influence to avoid execution, and
succeed in doing it. Gen. Mcdowell,
for instance, by reason of the political or
other favor which he commands at
Washington, remains Oh the active list,
while younger and ADLER generals have
been retired. There is rank injustice in
this and retirement will never be grace
fully accepted when it is thus Obnox-
iously thrust only upon those who are
too powerless to protect themselves.
There is Il crying need that the active
young officers of the army should have
speedy advance in rank as an incentive
to their exertions and a reward to their
ambition. Grey-haired lieutenants are
not an agreeable contemplation upon the
army register. If it was possible promo
tion should he made rapid for the efli-
cient officer and the inefficient should be
retired, whatever his age. Promotion
Dy merit should be the rule but the
practical difficulties in the way of secur
ing i: are such that probably promotion
by seniority is the only recourse left. To
make this promotion sufficiently rapid
death must not he relied upon us the only
agency in time of peace ; but should all
officers he cut off at the age of sixty
two? Senator Bayard proposes sixty
four rs substitute, which is something
better but it would be still better to
enact that at a certain age, say fifty, and
every teh years thereafter all the officers
should pass under the harrow of an eA-
animation into their fitness for active
duty to the end that if unfit they may
give their place, rank and enrolments
to those who now do their duty for them
and get none OF the rewards which is
not just to them nor beneficial to the
morale of the service. Wedding is good,
but the wedding out of hale officer just
because of his age is 4 mistake. Many
men are more active at seventy and
eighty than others of half these years.
Age is poor criterion Of physical
ability.
AS to Editors.
The Philadelphia Times is fond of
charging against the Stalwart hepubli-
can Lancaster Examiner that it is edited
by a iiowling Democrat. The Times is
not remarkable for the accuracy of it's
knowledge about the editorship of the
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