The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1913-08-27
Good Reason for Pessimism

Secretary of War Garrison and chief of gen.
eral staff General Wood were both pessimistic
in addresses delivered at Fort Logan, Colorado
yesterday, regarding the fitness of the United
States to defend itself properly should some
foreign nation suddenly attack it.
There is good reason for such pessimism. The
United States is totally unprepared to defend
itself properly from foreign attack. While we
have as good standing army for its size as there
is in the world as far as it's personnel is con-
cerned it is improperly trained and distributed
should emergency arise requiring its rapid
concentration. Our army posts, conceived of
politics and born of the pork barrel, scattered
throughout the union. They only large
enough to accommodate a regiment each and
wars are not fought in this day and age by regi-
ments, but by army corps.
Our army receives practically no drill such.
It's training is all along the lines of regimental
drill. The European nations become armed
camps at least once each year when large bodies
of troops in each country put through army
maneuvers. This is not only to train the men,,
but also to give the general officers valuable
perience during times of peace to learn from
practice how to handle armies in war times.
No American general is ever given such OPP
portunities to learn to handle an army through
such practical experience. The ptifully made
quate maneuvers held in several states each year
in which a regiment or two of regulars and a
couple of regiments of militia participate, the
laughing stock of the trained generals of other
countries.
For some another Americans are
the most impractical people on earth when it
comes to considering modern warfare. We are
still living in the middle ages when it comes to
what think personal prowess would do
towards winning victory for nation with I'M
trained volunteers should be plunged into an
unexpected war. And modern wars are all unex-
pected and sudden. Witness the breaking out of
the Russian-Japanese and the Balkan-Turkish
y wars. Americans have supreme belief that if
an enemy attacks the United States will drop
the ploughshare, leave the factory and close
down desks, seize our trusty rifles and utter
ly annihilate the foolhardy enemy.
AS matter of fact, egged on by those who
have been most demonstrative in their demands
for our country's leading the way towards inter
national peace by disarming before other coun-
tries have done so, patriots who will still be home
egging others on to the front when the is
over our volunteers on the fighting line will fine
that the hell General Sherman referred to in his
famous description Of war is a pink tea com
pared to the realities OF modern warfare.
One trained man with modern four-hundred
aminute-shots machine gun could wipe out
regiment if fighting under the conditions that
prevailed at the battle of Gettysburg,
) Modern warfare is fought with machinery
machinery of the most intricate kind Cannon
no longer are served in sight of the enemy. They
are placed several miles in the and their fire
is directed against the enemy's line by officers
who are in reality scientists in mathematics
Soldiers no longer charge as they did in the ole
days right into the jaws of death. They make
short rushes and then seek cover while all tn,