The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1909-05-31

power. have led to the increase in our
regular army to a larger force than
ever before. but not larger in proper
ton to the increased population and
wealth than in the early years of the
republic. 1t should not be reduced.
An Honorable Profession.
1.-The profession of arms has always
been an honorable one and under con-
ditions of modern warfare it has be-
come highly technical and requires
years of experience and study to adapt
the officers and men to its require
mentS.
"The general purpose of congress and
the American people, if one can say
there is a plan or purpose, is to have
such nucleus as a regular army that
it may furnish skeleton for rapid
enlargement in times of a war to q
force ten or twenty times its size and
at the same time be an appropriate in
pose of the government in crises likely
to arise, other than war.
AT West Point We have been able
to prepare a body of professional SOL
diers, we'll trained officers and an
army numerous enough at the opening
of the civil war to give able comman-
ders to both sides of that strife.
On the side of the north, many of
the officers were drafted to command
the volunteer troops from the states
10000 at the opening of the war was in
creased to about $4,000 during it's first
year. More than half this army was
engaged in the battle of Gettysburg
Time does not permit me to mention
the names of the heroes of the regular
army whose blood stained this historic
field, and whose sacrifices made the
Union victory possible.
The Nations Pride.
with my intimate knowledge of
the regular army, their high standard
of duty, their efficiency as soldiers,
their high character as men, 1 have
seized this opportunity to come here
to testify to the pride which the ma
ton should have in its regular army
and to dedicate this monument to the
predecessors of the present regular
army on a field on which they won
undying glory and perpetual gratitude
from the nation which they served.
They had not the local associations,
they had not the friends and neigh
bors of the volunteer forces and to
it that their deeds of valor were
properly recorded and the value of
their services suitably noted in the
official records by legislative and
congressional action and they have
now to depend upon the truth of
history and in the cold, calm,
restrospect of the war as it is to secure
from congress this suitable memorial
try which they wrought here
"All honor to the regular army of the
United States, never in it's history has
| it stain upon it's escutcheon.
with no one to blow its trumpets,
with no local feeling or pride to bring
forth it's merits, quietly and as BELTS
a force organized to maintain civil
| institutions and subject always to the
civil control, it has gone on doing the
| duty which it was its to do, accepting
| without murmur the dangers of war
whether upon trackless stretches of
our western frontier. exposed to ar
rows and the bullets of the Indian, or
! in the jungles and the rice paddles of
the Philippines, on hills and valleys
about Santiago in Cuba, or in the
| campaigns of the civil war itself and
| 1t has never failed to make a record of
duty done that should satisfy the
most exacting lover of his country. It
now becomes my pleasant duty to de-
| dicate this monument to the memory
| of the regular soldiers of the repub-
| lie, who gave up their lives at Gettys-
! burg and who contributed in a large
degree to the victory of those three
(Continued on Page Five1