The times. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1897-1901, 1898-04-09
Regulars Against Volunteers.

Little has been said or written as to the
hotiy-contested. silent struggle now wag-
ing between Regular Army officers and
volunteer officers who won honors in the
civil war and retired and now desire to go
to the front Army officers are trying to
impress upon their superiors that the
President should not call for volunteers
in the event of war, but should, if neCeS-
sary, swell the Army by enlistments to
four times its present size and allow the
line and staff officers full command of Il
without commissioning an additional ofii-
Ger.
At this proposition the old Kentucky
colonels the brigadier generals and ma or
generals have risen in revolt, and they
are now and will continue to insist that
| il will be idle to attempt to whip Spain
| without the aid of a few hundred thous-
and volunteers.
There is in this city a veteran of the
| late war, colonel, who stands ready to
| furnish a brigade of volunteers. He was
| asked yesterday If he thought the Presi-
| dent would Junk it necessary to call for
| volunteers. He said;
II have not the least doubt that one
| Of the first things the President will do
| after war has been declared will be to
call for at least 1900 volunteers. OF
course. / understand what the Regular
! Army officers are saying. They want to
| do All the WORK themselves and take all
! the glory of victory. That's the true
| West Point spirit But in this case that
| viii hardly do.
You can easily figure out why this is
| 50. There are, in the first place, only
| ll30Go men in the militia, all told. OF
| these il is a conservative estimate to say
that not more than 10000 would respond
| TO a call. In the Regular Army there arc
| about 2S.010 No one believes that the
! Government would abandon all the forti-
! ficatioDs in the West. which have too few
men; so that not more than 10000 of these
| could he brought to the front.
| Now, how many men will it require to
| simply man the fortifcations on the sea-
! board2 Not one less than $1,000. Those
! figures are official So. you see. your
| available men are all exhausted, and you
| have no army Of occupation, nor a single
| soldier TO patrol the enormous coast line,
/ with the many important coast towns
! where there are no fortifcations.
THE military authorities of Spain real
ize that in the event Of war Cuba is lost
to them. Therefore, what will they doy
They viii direct all the energy of which
they are capable toward the United
States. They will issue letters of marque
and reprisal 10 any man who has a ship
and i desire for booty. And these fellows
viii make hot haste for this country.
1 They will find their way to one of our
| unprotected seacoast towns. and there
are scores of them in our thousands of
miles of seaboard. They viii land and
enter, hold up the mayor and demand
so 0J0. with the alternative Of blowing up
| the town The SJ00G0 viii be forthcoming.
You can mark my words, that is just
| exactly what will happen if we get into
war with Spain, and the only way in the
world to prevent it, Will be to call for 200
090 volunteers and station them on patrol
duty all along the coast. Then. if the
! letters Of marque come along, they can
| be properly entertained
For their part. the Regular Army Off
GERS take little stock in all this. They
/ deny the necessity of commissioning a
single colonel or brigadier general. An
officer in the Regular Army said yester-
day:
Nothing is more certain than that If
the President calls out lot of vOlun-
teers. we viii have war lasting not less
than one year. for the reason that no
matter how good material your volun-
teer may be it viii take him at least that
time to make a soldier Of him. We didn't
| have a real army either side in the
| Rebellion until there had been three years
| Of lighting. Spain has In Cuba probably
| 10000 trooDs. who are the fttest of the
100000 she has sent there. If they weren't
soldiers when they went there, they are
| now ti'9 are idIatItu, dcclluidtlZec
and lit Take lot OF volunteers to Flori-
da or Cuba, and 20 per cent Of them will
be sick in the first six months
NO. sir. give me regulars for cam
paign Of this kind, which ought not tc
take ten weeks at the outside. Look al
the Franco-German war. where the sea,
soned soldiers Of Germany went through
the great French nation like hot sho
in less than two months. Enlarge the
Regular Army to 900 men. and the %.
regulars viii leaven the whole mass anC
make a fighting army that will whiI
Spain's forces in short order"