Norwich bulletin., 1912-07-05
TFLSoN SEEKS AN
 IMPROVEMENT IN ARMY
Speaks in House on Military Bill and Failure t3 Consider Changes Wanted.
(special to The Bulletln.l


 Failure t3 Consider Changes Wanted.
 Special to The Bulletin.)
 Washington, July 4.-The house hav- ing under consideration the military bill, MT. T1Ison spoke in opposition to the measure. He said, in part: Mir. Speaker, the present bill is the same as that which passed the house on February i6 last That bill went its way 10 the senate. where 1t was amended, then through a long confer ence between the two houses, where 1t was further amended, and finally to the president, where. on June IT, 1t met the well deserved fate of a veto. The reasoning of the presidential veto is SO conclusive that no attempt has been made to meet it. Instead we are con- fronted with a new bill, which is, in fact, the old bill with the senate and conference amendments eliminated. While some of the objectionable fea- lures referred to in the veto message have been removed, others, fit out of the house bill by the senate and the conference, have been restored.
 'FWhn the former bill was under discussion here, the matter of extend ing the enlistment period from three to five years was gone into in much detail and in my opinion, the argu- ments then made against the extension have not been and cannot be answered 1 shall not attempt to repeat the ar guments made on that occasion and shall refer to only one of them in or der to enlarge somewhat upon it. The adoption of the fve-year enlistment period would be, in my opinion, a va rious step backward and directly op- kI N.,- 1-1~k ,f 1 the present day. The tendency under such 8 policy would be towards a pro- ! fessional army. A professional army as small as ours in country as large 1 as ours is an aDsurdity. A war of any consequence must be fought as hos our wars in the past, by men brought into | the service at the time for the par 1 ticular purpose. When all arms were | of short range and men could fight in compact bodies, 1t was & less difficult matter to train men for efficient mill | tary service, Ii was a comparatively simple matter to fill the ranks of skel- eton cefnpaHies with raw recruits and trust to the impetus of ths trained men ts earEy the entire mass forward | in case of conflict, With the Eapid de- VsiePAe4t in firearms has come new
 and mere difficult problems iR warfare.
 IFhe heavy column has been necessarily replaced by the thiR sSirHjsh liRe, In-
 stead of going forward with locked
 arms in solid phalaRE, it often be-
 comes necessary to advance only a few men at time, or even individual soi-
 dieTs. This means that each man must be trained. If skeleton organizations are to be filled up with raw recruits
 the trained men will be impeded or de-
 moralized by the failure of the un-
 trained.
 Our army. ss it exists today, is It,
 tie more than a school of training foI
 the national defense in case of war
 The training required of officers makes
 it necessary that they be professional
 soldiers, and they become essentially
 military teachers. With the men 1T
 the ranks 1t Is quite different. It k
 generally agreed that a private soldier
 can be well trained within one year
 and that any time beyond three years
 is wasted, so far as necessary train ing is concerned
 There are two widely differing theor ies as to how best to maintain ou
 army in time of peace that it may mos effectively perform its functions il time of war The one upon which thh provision of the bill seems to be baset ! Is that it is better to train only a fev men and keep these in the service a.
 long as possible. There would be ! foundation for this theory if our arm. was large enough of Itself to need n,
 assistance in case of war. The othe ! theory-and as l believe. the onl, sound onc-is that inasmuch as it vii
 surely be necessary to draw from civi
 life the bulk of our soldiery in cas . of war. it is extremely important tha , there be as many trained men as pos f sihle in civil life. The supply of sue f trained men will grow less as tn l period of enlistment is increased. ; the period of enlistment ere only sui
 ficient for thorough training. and n more. the number of such men woul , rapidly increase. The president, in hi f veto message well says. It will tend t 8 make difficult or impossible the estab
 lishment of a proper reserve by whic 6 the regular army could in time of em q ergency be brought up to It's flu 6 strength
 MT. Tilson referred to the bill in n troduced by himself several yeeks ak . which provides for just such reserv
 as Is referred to by the president. H
 said he was trying to get action fro1
 the committee on military affairs. H
 did not go into detail, but said that u, principle involved in his bill was conserve the military resources of th
 country and instead of turning thei
 loose at the end of their snlistmeI = keep q record of them and knew wheI d they can be found in case of emre ,, geneyr This hs said could be dene comparatively small eest, and that Il was pFefared to show that 8 resPI 8 could be maintained sufficient te fl
 every organization sf the army up = its maximum war strength at a eS T Aet ta exceed the expense necessary l. maintain tive regiments ef infantry