The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1908-05-02
OAHU. MUST
RAISE TROOPS
Continued from Page One,


ever, that these forts NAV become more
than passive obstacles, 1t is necessary
to provide a personnel for them after
they have been completed. This ques-
ton of personnel is one that probably
VIII bother us the most of anything,
and that is the one thing in which We
must have local assistance.
Before going into details in that
respect, I would say that in addition
to this class of defense against sea
attack, there is another kind of defense
necessary, and that is to guard these
very Notifications from falling into the
hands of the enemy by attacking it
from the land side. The War Depart
ment is taking steps to find out what
may be the minimum force necessary to
safeguard the naval base and fortifica-
tons from such attack. This defense
will necessarily also guard everything
else on this island. or practically every
thing else, especially the city of Ho-
nolulu, and important commercial in
terests besides. Therefore we will con-
slider then this defense as safeguard
ing the island against landings that
might be made away from the points
that the Notifications might reach, for
that we have two distinct classes of
defenses to make in that respect, and
I am going to try to show you the
necessity of some steps of the local
governmtnt to assist us in getting a
personnel for these kinds of defenses.
ATLANTIC COAST MILITIA.
ION the Atlantic coast this matter
haS haay1 tab xx-;tf,
guard, or the various state governs
ments, and they are organizing ma
tional guards for the two kinds of
defense. A number of the states have
already organized and others are ac-
lively engaged now in organizing what
they call a coast artillery corps, to
assist in handling the guns. This is
necessary because the coast artillery
of the regular army is far short of
the number of men necessary. The
same will come true when our de-
lenses here are completed--we will be
short of regular coast artillery; we
will be short of men to man all the
guns, and guns without men behind
them are useless. The regular coast
artillery is expected. however. to fur
nish enough men to supply all of the
experts, as you might say, in handling
the electrical machinery, the range
finding systems. the submarine mine
systems, and those things that take a
long time to learn-in fact, the things
that man has to be working at
nearly all the time to be up to date
and know his machinery, just the
same as a man running ship. But
there are other things that can be
learned in a shorter time, which. how
ever, are such that some instruction
at least should be given SO that the
men are ready when the time comes
to take their places. Therefore ICON
slider it necessary that a certain part
OF, the defense should be furnished by
the Territory-the personnel for the
defense of the large guns, when they
are completed as I said before. In
the states, on the Atlantic coast espe-
cially, active steps have been taken
and success has very largely met the
efforts. For two years now we have
had joint maneuvers with the regular
coast artillery and national guard
troops; also some regular troops of
the mobile army, that is infantry es-
pecially Some of these troops have
been placed with the regular coast ar
tillery and instructed in actually
handling the guns, and they have done
so far as to make good scores at tar
get practise and in handling entirely
the heavy guns by themselves. That
is only, however, the case with such
organizations as the coast artillery
regiments of New York and Boston;
the others have progressed fairly well
in their instruction, but they have not
taken over the whole system.
HALF ENOUGH MEN.
eve can probably promise you
enough men to man about half the
defenses, in addition to manning the
expert places-that is, the observing
stations and lines of communications,
etc-but we need just about that many
more men That is about the condi-
ton of affairs that obtains on the
mainland of the United States, and L
don't think it would be far different
here. I can not speak from statlstlcs
on this matter, but I would say that
we might need, say, thousand men
to handle the guns here; that II an
organization, say an artillery corps,
should be raised here of about five
hundred men or so, equivalent 10
battalion at war strength, organized
almost exactly the same as an infah-
try battalion, and instruction given
annually, even if for only one week at
the guns, they would be ready Wnen
the President needed them to be call
ed into service and assist right in the
local field defense Immediately. You
may rest assured they would never be
ordered to any other place; you would
have them right here at home all the
time. Now, having these defenses
those men would not be available for
any other defenses. They must re-
main at those guns, otherwise those
guns will not do their duty; they viii
not keep away fleets that might at
tack the Notifications from that side.
There must be another defense You
all know how small our regular army
is and how scattered even that small
army is It is now scattered over
many of our island possessions, ana,
in fact. there is a very small force
left in the United States, and under
such conditions, while perhaps there
will be much more of the regular army
II &c