The times., 1899-07-16
FAST GOING TO PIECES
Many designations From the Dis,
trict National Guard.
Thirty-Three Commissioned officers
Omit the Organization in Two
Affairs Are Conducted-Unpopu
ity of the Commanding Generals.

According to the report just issued from
| National Guard headquarters by Capt
| Alfred P. Robbins, the Acting Adjutant
| General, no less than thirty three officers
| have resigned their commissions in the
local militia during the past six months
| and goodly grist of designations is being
| piled up to be reported for the six months
beginning June 80 last. About one half OF
| the above number of designations have oc-
CURED since May.
Those who have the good of the District
National Guard at heart have become
alarmed at the present condition. Of affairs.
Thirty-three designations within a few
months, are regarded as being a serious
blow to the organization, and if the
| breach continues to widen, reports
| state, it is but question of time. say the
well wishers, when the local military boiy
will become disorganized and pass on into
the list of things that have been in the
District.
There must be some great cause for dis
satisfaction, say those who have watched
the growth and decline of the Guard and
| if this cause is so strong as to require a
wholesale migration of commissioned Off
GERS from the ranks, an investigation is
sadly needed, it is held, and the cause
should be removed. 1t is held that never
| before has there been such a large number
of designations within the history of the
| Guard, and as there has recently been
| much contention in the ranks, there are
those who demand that needed changes be
made before the local militia becomes com
pletely disorganiZed.
| The bulk of the men who have grievances
are too loyal to their old commands and
too unwilling to be regarded as sore
| heads" to do much talking. They prefer
| to allow the Guard to work out its own
! salvation, and hold that the crisis must
| come in the near future when certain
''fgureheads" will be shown up in their true
light and in the storm of popular feeling
the disturbing elements will be removed
and efficient men with knowledge of mill
| tary tactics and military discipline and
procedure will be appointed and will make
| the Guard as popular as of old and
| splendid organization. AT present, they
| claim, whole companies are only holding
| together because of the personal popu-
larity of certain officers who are earnestly
! striving to keep the local militia to-
| gether, and even these officers must sooner
/ or later let the feeling run its gamut and
do its worst. 1t is claimed that there is
| at present less of enthusiasm and more of
| careless disgust among the members of
the Guard than ever before in its history.
| The reasons for this state of affairs are
very apparent, according to a prominent
| officer, who has done everything possible
to make of the Guard such body of men
as the late General Ordway would have
wished.
! You cannot expect a body of men to
| take any interest in their organization
when they have absolutely no regard, much
| less admiration, for the man who COM
mands them" said this officer yesterday.
| THE old members who saw service in the
| late war can never have any use for a
man whom they openly hissed in public
place, as was done at Convention Hall last
autumn, and the other members have wit
messed such long round OF error and in
competency on this mans part that they
have come to regard him as a huge joke,
! or, as they term it, a tin soldier. They
| have seen the officers whom they admired
snubbed and shifted at by this god whom
they are hostile to, and when they go
about the city as civilians they hear so
much against this man as a soldier, and SO
/ little in his favor that they almost hate to
| have to march behind him"
| At all events 1t is held by many that a
batch of thirty-three designations in one
/ report has come TO be too much of good
thing. and that the Guard might as well be
mustered out in body as to go to pieces
in driblets and patches. Changes must be
made, and made at once, say those who
have followed the situation, and not until
certain unpopular and incompetent officers
have been removed will the local mi it a
amount to anything, say they. At the
present rate of falling off in the Guard the
rank and file will soon be guessing as to
who are their regimental and battalion
commanders, it is held, and within short
period the militia will resolve itself into
body of men without officers or a body of
newly commissioned officers with com
| rnanls