Pullman herald. [volume] (Pullman, W.T. [Wash.]) 1888-1989, 1906-07-14
larger ARMY POSTS
PLAN OF PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT
and SECRETARY TAFT.
Seven Brigade Posts, to Pc Com
manded by Brigadier Generals, Are
to Be EstabIished-Smaller Posts to
Be Abandoned-Taft Will GO with
President to Panama.

Important steps calculated to mate
rally develop the efficiency of the
army have been taken by President
Roosevelt and Secretary Taft at Sag
amore Hill. In his last annual mes
sage to congress the president said
the lumber of posts in which the reg
ulars are kept in time of peace should
be materially diminished and the posts
that are left made correspondingly
larger.
ms recommendation is to be car
r1ed out at once. Seven brigade posts
to be commanded by ~brigadier gener-
ais are to be established now. Two
others are desired, but the funds at
the disposal of the secretary may not
be sufficient to allow of their equip
ment during the present fiscal year.
The posts which the president and
Secretary Taft tentatively decided to
enlarge to brigade posts are those at
Fort Riley, Kansas; Fort Leaven-
worth, Kansas; Fort Sam Houston,
Texas; Fort Robinson, Nebraska;
Fort D.. A. Russell, Wyoming; Fort
Sill, Oklahoma, and Fort O~glethorpe,
Georgia.
1t is desired to have one in Pennsyl-
yania and one on the Pacific coast,
but these will have to be taken care
of later.
The necessity for the formulation of
a complete plan at this time, in the
development of the new scheme is oc-
castoned by the requirement in the
urgency deficiency appropriation act
of the last session that all appropria-
lions shall be apporuoned so as to last
throughout the year for the purposes
for which they were made without
causing a deficiency. The army ap-
preparation act carries $500, 900 for the
creation of army posts. 1t also carries
$4,000 for army barracks and quarters
and $4,000 for transportation of the
army. Before this money can be ex-
pended a complete plan as to what it
shall be used for must be made and
the lump sum appropriations so ap-
portioned that no deficiency will be
created.
In attempting to carry out his plan
the president is simply following the
line he indicated to congress in ms
message. 1t is his firm belief that the
army should be trained above all else
to act in a mass. To this end he sug-
gested that provision be made for
maneuyerS of a practical kind. In this
plan he says the generals and colonels
would have opportunity to handle regi-
ments. brigades and divisions, and the
commissary and medical departments
would be tested in the field. What he
added regarding the establishment of
larger army posts was that no local
interests should be allowed to stand in
the way of assembling the greater
part of the troops, which would at
need form our field armies, in stations
of such size as will permit The best
training to be given to the personnel
OF all grades, including the high Off
GERS and stats of each.
TO accomplish this enG," he said,
W must have no company and regi-
mental garrisons, but brigade and
division g~arrisons."
Wedding Out Officers.
The president follows this with
comment on the wedding out process
the West Point military academy does
on prospective army officers and saws
there should be some processes in the
army that would achieve the same
end.
liter a certain age has been at
tanned" he says, the average officer
is unfit to do good work below a GER
tain grade"
Provision, he maintains, should be
made for the promotion of men over
the heads Of their comrades and for
the retirement of all men who have
reached a given age without going be-
yond a given rank.
The plan now being worked out by
the president and the secretary is in
tended to accomplish much that the
president expressed a desire for in the
foregoing recommendations to con-
gress.
The locations selected are all places
where the government has large res
erYalions and where the troops may
be modified to advantage for maneu-
Yers or other purposes. AT Oglethorpe,
Ga, the post is adjacent to the Chick
amauga national park.
The secretary will accompany the
president to Panama, and said the
start for the isthmus would be made
Immediately after the November cleo
tons, that the president might be in
Washington before the opening of
congress.