The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1895-09-02
THE MILITARY CITY.
CASE OF LIEUT.. CowLEs, FORMER
LY oUARTERMAsTER.
abandonment of Small Posts-From
Lieut.-Gen. Schofield-Goss1p at
Fort Douglas.

The formal charges against Lieuten,
ant Cowles have not yet been received
hut it is known that they are IN reSalu
to the alleged irregularities IN the Oh
flee of regimental quartermaster. Ihey
are expected very soon. IL Is hheiy
that a court martial will be calleo IN
four days.
Carter Harrison. formerly of Com
panVD. has re-enlisted in New YORK.
He may have taken this step with q
view of straigtening out some OF MS
crooked debts in this post.
Major Robinson will pay the troops
this month for the last time. Hereafter
payments will be made by check Tor,
warded to the post commanders ana
distributed by captains OF companies
Private Ed t. Mass, alias Eli 7. Bax-
ter, of Company D, now OF furlough IN
the east, will be discharged from the
service Oct. %. Thus another society
O. soldier gives up the blue.
Company B, the pioneers, will go n
to the canyon tomorrow to reoulld the
road a short distance below the reser-
voir. This will leave but four COM
panies for duty in the post Guard du-
The bullet proof coat has been thor
oughly tested by the authorities Of the
army, and proved to be a failure. This
fact the inventor will learn when he
gets his samples back, shot full of
holes.
Since the consolidation of regiments
the Sixteenth infantry has been sta
fOI1 N
southern states, to 1877; three years
in Kansas and Indian territory to $780,;
eight years in Texas to 1888; seven
years in Wyoming and Utah to May,
1898.
The secretary of war thinks a great
point has been gained by the abandon
ment of small posts, and the concen-
tration of troops at larger ones. a few
years ago there were some one hundred
posts in ALL About twenty-five of
these have already been abandoned,
leaving sixty that are absolutely neces-
sary AS result of this concentration
the troops are better housed and bet
ter disciplined. All the posts are looked
upon as permanent. Many of the small
er ones in old days were put up tenn
porarily and it did not seem worth
while to spend much money upon them
Now all the posts are pretty comforta-
BILE places, and there IS a decided i'm
provement in the character of the
troops. Recently it has been found
that the army was hardly large enough
to suppress domestic violence. to say
nothing Of a foreign enemy The Ma
tional Guard will prove an invaluable
auxiliary in case of war.
Lieutenant General Schofield. who
retires from the head of the army in
a few weeks, evidently does not relish
the criticisms lavished upon him since
his visit to Fort Meade. Through the
medium Of the acting adjutant general
he has this to say: An officer is de-
ing throughout the army, and giving
to the public at large, censorious COM
ments, whether just or unjust, upon
department of the public service to
which he belongs. His conduct is par
ticularly reprehensible when it extends
to personalities The public press is
not the proper medium through which
officers should invite attention to what
they may deem defects or abuses in the
service. Among intelligent officers, who
care for the public interest, it is well
understood that official suggestions
made with a view to the welfare of
itually received due consideration, and
that it is conduct to the prejudice of
good order and military discipline, for
officers to appeal to the public press
instead of to the war department for
redress of what they believe to be
wrong.
"All discipline and subordinatfon
would be overturned by yielding to the
view that the army can be made a