The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1898-05-24

look on and help the boys have a good time.
They would be United States soldiers as
Wen as state miltiamen. Each year ma
tloHal encampment of sixty days should be
held for that third of the militia that were
| completingf their term of service--a gradu-
at1ng class exercise, as il were and there
would be enough men TO make an army
corps, or about 25,0O0 men. This would give
a chance for all the evolutions of brgades,
DIVISIONS and corps, all the maneuVers
SHOWN 10 an army In this way we should
get some excellent training, and the West
Ioint instructions would filter down
through the ranks. These mlitiamen would
be like the regular army in point of prep
aration except that instead of devotng all
their time to a military life they would give
one month in summer, two months the last
year, and two hours once a week the rest
of the time. They would be paid accord
ingly, and as an expense 10 the national
government would bear a like proportion
to the regulars. except that the government
would not have to feed these militiamen
curing the eleven months OF the year.
NO ACCOMPLISHMENTS.
''No man should be allowed to re-enlist,
and we would therefore be educating our
people in soldiery at the rate of perhaps
25,OO0 or $1,000 year. as many more as
Congress cared to provide for. The effects
of this system would be most beneficial:
There would be just enough military school
ing for its best results, and not enough to
produce the Generalization incident to
service as this would be a splendid thing
for every young man in the country, teach
ing self-control, steadiness and developing
the physical side of life When a war came
on we should then have a trained Soldiery,
only slightly behind the regulars in expert
ence, and equipped and trained in every way
like them. Some provision might be made
for few substitutes to take the places of
such a percentage of the miitiamen as
would at any given time find it inconvenient
to go to the front. But there would be no
On hot of ha Sfsafaa
might object a little to this system at first,
but they would soon get over it, They
could not afford to keep up the militia in
competition with this system, largely sup
ported by the government.
Not least among the advantages of the
plan would be the putting to an end of the
diotic medical examinations now in vogue.
When we are short of men we take any
thing that has strength enough to hold a
gun, but when applicants are plentiful we
set up a standard that John l.. Sullivan in
his prime could not have passed. In a prac
teal way these extreme tests are useless.
inc thought underlying captain Bradys
plan Is we'll expressed in an editorial in the
old Washington Capital of Jan. II, 1890,
which reads as follows:
After a century of more or less intell-
gent experimenting nothing better than the
National Guard system has been hit upon.
IT should be a source of interest and hon.
est pride of every. patriotic citizen. The
active members of the guard form our first
line of reserves Those who have served
and retired would, under a proper system,
form the second line. With the regular
army a nucleus and the active National
Guard ready to answer the call to arms at
a moments notice, we could mobilize an
army effective in numbers, in training and
in discipline-in short, an army, and not
an armed mob which would require six
months or year to learn the rudiments
of the art of war We managed to pull
through during the civil war simply because
the enemy at least, was as unprepared at
the outset as we were. If foreign enemy
ever attacks us we will be given no time
in which leisurely to get ready to fight.
Suppose we had had in 1861 a National
Guard of half a million men. armed and
equipped, drilled and disciplined which
could have been modified and concentrated
speedily, we would have been spared at least
two years of war and their enormous ex-
penditures, of money and terrible sacrifices
of men,