The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1907-07-21
ACHIEVEMENTS OF GEN. BELL.
He Has Practically Remodeled Army
Establishment.

/ Major General J. Franklin Bell, who as
| the chief of the general staff during the
| past three years has practically remod-
eled the army's administrative and educa-
| tional establishments, regards the con-
Meeting system of army schools and the
! establishment of brigade posts the eli
max of his efforts. He has turned the
| entire army into a vast school, starting
| with the general course at West Point
| followed by the post graduate courses at
| Ieavenworth for infantry, Riley for cav
airy and light artillery, and Fortress
Monroe for heavy artillery, with continu-
Gus cooperative lecture and study courses
| thereafter in the officers schools at each
| post, and the climax the state war col
| iege recently opened at Washington for
| the honor graduates from all these insti-
| tutions which in turn is the basis for Sc
lection to the general staff. the corps
! elite and the administrative body of the
army as it is now organized.
The Inauguration of the war college at
! Washington marked the completion of the
educational scheme which is now operative
and since that time General Bell has been
| directing the efforts of the general staff
| toward the proper concentration of the
army in larger units.
Bell and Brigade Post Idea.
Up to the time of the war with Spain
| very few officers except the older ones
| who had seen service in the civil war
| ment together. This was a great handi-
cap in the organization of the larger vol
| unteeT army, as most of the regimental
| commanders selected from the regulars
were forced to fall back upon theory
| There was no one of the brigadier or ma
| jor generals appointed from the regular
| army at that time who had ever COM
manded or even served in a brigade or
division of troops assembled together
! This was of course caused by the neceS-
| sity of maintaining a large number of
small posts on the frontier and near pos
| sible hostile Indian centers- After the
| Spanish war these small posts began to
| be abandoned and regimental posts es-
| tablished. When General Bell took charge
! he conceived and promoted the idea of
still further lessening the number of
posts and increasing the size of them I'M
| til the end of his efforts Is now to have
nothing in the interior of the country but
| brigade posts where officers can become
accustomed to handling and acting with
the larger size body of men they would
have as fighting units in time of war.
Bells Fighting Record.
The achievements of General Bell are
not merely confined to his recent work
as the head of the army staff He is first
| of all a practical fighting man and has
| been under fire Oftener than any other Of
| ficer of any grade now in the service
| He is a Kentuckian by birth, having been
1 born near Henderson in that state just
| fifty years ago. He was graduated at
| West Point in the class of 1878, one year
/ before Taft's class at Yale and two years
before ROosevelt's Harvard. He was as
signed to the Seventh cavalry. As all its
| officers had the year before been killed
| In the Custer massacre and their places
| filld by younger men. promotion was so
| slow that the beginning of the war with
/ Spain saw him only first lieutenant.
/ At the close of the Philippines campaigns
/ four years later he was q brigadier gen
eral and universally recognized by the
/ army as having done more to end the war
| in the Islands than any other man except
General Henry w. Lawton. He got his
start by securing an appointment as a
/ major of engineers with Merritts first
| expedition against Manila and the as
| signment as chief of the military secret
| service. He learned Spanish and Tag
aIo. because the medium of communica-
| ton and information between Generals
/ Merritt and Otis and Aguinaldo. planned
the attack on Manila of August 13, 1885,
| when the United States forces took that
city from the Spaniards and on the out
| break of the Instruction on February 4,
/ 1899 at once attached himself to General
/ McArthur's column, the first one to
| march against the organized tDSurgent
army He and Funston, then the colonel
| of the First Kansas. alternately command