The daily morning journal and courier., 1898-09-01
SUGGESTIONS AS TO THE ARMY,

Conditions Discussed by an Army Wo-
 man, Who Urges the Development of
 the Regular Army.
 To the Editor of the Tribune:
 Sir. Permit an Army woman to thank you for the editorial on Army and Navy Contrasts"
 Had the Infantry Three Battalion bill been passed even so late as the time immediately after the loss of the Maine, the regular army could have been re- cruited up to it's maximum and have been ample for all necessities so far in Cuba, Manila and Porto Rico, and fifty thousand of the National Guard could have been mustered into the service of the United States and have been drilled in number of healthfully situated camps in the northern states, where the good material in officers and men could have been shaped into soldiers, and would have been ready to meet necessi- ties in the fall in fine shape-so far as health goes, at least. All the horrors l resulting from the unhealthy southern camps, crowded with unused and not needed regiments; all the terribly greater disasters resulting from sending too many volunteer regiments to Santi- ago, only to fall sick, and by their numbers to render provision for the regulars, who had done the fighting, impossible, might have been avoided but for the mad purpose to prove how America could organize an army of two hundred thousand men in one or two months.
 The navy did its work because for the last fifteen years or so the government has ceased to neglect it. The Tribune knows how some men have worked to try to do justice to our little army, than which a finer body of men does not exist on this earth. Alas! that one ought almost to write, did exist! And just that often-defeated Three Battal- ion bill, thanks to men of sublime ig- norance, like Bailey, of Texas, if passed, would have given the country an army large enough, with sixty-fve thousand men, to have won victory in this war without friction, without er- TOTS, and with just as wonderful suc- cess as has followed the navy. The hundreds of political officers have only fallen over each other in their isnor- ance as to their duties.
 
 for the field when war was declared, ex- cept az to uniforms. Suppose that fif- teen thousand regulars had been sent at once to Santiago? All could have been accomplished before the rainy season set in. And does any one not know that the quartermaster and com missary departments as organized, would have been able to handle reg ular army of sixty-flve thousand in the field, and one of national Guard re- serves of fifty thousand in northern camps, without friction, and with sue cess? Then please figure out the cost to the country of the unwieldy, useless army of two hundred thousand of un- | fortunate reality, and the one that | might have been, and that would have | challenged the admiration of the world | just as our navy has. Can any one not ! purposely blind not see that the navy is | a success because it belongs to the Uni ted States and has not forty-five states l navies to be jealous of it and deter | mined to down it?''
 | Civilians are wise enough to know that they cannot become sailors and naval officers by drilling in tubs on in | land ponds once week, but they know that they can be soldiers and officers, | and exhaust the whole art of war, of l discipline and of organization, by wear | ing uniforms and practising company l tactics in armories, with a picnic at state camps of fortnight each sum- | mer.
 It is the forty-fve supernumerary war departments that have done their | haSt to I,ri,, 1c,oc Far ha ptpxy in, 1 their jealousy of the little band of he roic, trained, splendid regulars who at | Santiago had a chance to prove their | mettle. One senator in Washington | told me in June that he had on his desk five hundred applications for army ap- | pointments from men in his state! Is it any wonder the crush has killed hun 1 dreds of victims? Do you wonder that we, whose friends have died at Santiar go, or, far worse, in the trenches or on those horrible transports feel bitterly on this subject? My husband is a re- | tired officer whose service and health ended with the civil war, and my son is a lieutenant in the Ninth infantry, but kept from Santiago by typhoid fever.
 It is training that makes the soldier, and soldier" means officers of the com pany, field, brigade, staff-all. If the | officers of the National Guard could | spend three months at regimental army posts, and take turns under the quar- | termasters, the adjutants and the mess | officers, and, besides, attend all drills l all schools for officers and men, could | serve as regimental engineer officers, on | the rifle ranges, etc, they would begin | to have some respect for regular off, | cers and some doubts of their own qual- 1 ifications to take charge of men. It Is there where the lack is-that the off, | cers are not trained. All Americans are brave and ready to die or suffer, but to l be soldier is a trade, only to be 1 learned by long apprenticeship.
 | Pardon me if I beg you also to cham pion the cause of the regular non-com- | mssioned officers. The laws ot 1878 read in effect that vacancies in the army Qist of officers) are to be filled, | first, by appointment to second lieu l tenancies of the graduates of the West Point Military Academy; then by ap- pointments to same grade of properly qualified non- commissioned officers who have passed the necessary examinations and been properly recommended by | their officers, and, finally, if any more | vacancies exist, by appointments by the l president from civil life. Yet when the Army Reorganization bill was passed,