New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1915-11-17
Imitation Preparedness.

Imitation Preparedness.
Criticism of the administration anna
flourish plan of army reorganization Is
producing results. Washington dispatches
say that Secretary Garrison is gong 20
urge President Wilson to make puoilc inc
report of the General Staff of the Army
on the country's military needs. congress
certainly ought to know what the army
experts think, as well as what the Presl-
dent and Mr.. Garrison think, before II
takes up the task of making over the army
Mr.. Garrison has sought to excuse the
administrations plan of surface reorgani-
cation on the ground that it represents all
that can be gotten under existing condl-
tons. Gotten from whom? 1t may be
true that this patchwork imitation of
real reorganization is all that can be gotten
lust now from the President. But is it all
that Congress will sanction? Mr.. Garrison
saws that he asked for so little because ne
didn't want to bother Congress with larger
demands. Yet it is not his place to decide
in advance what Congress is willing to
do. Secretary Daniels made that mistake
year ago. 1t is Mr.. Garrison's duty to
give Congress all the facts, as well as the
recommendations which he himself bases
on those facts. 1t is then the duty of Con-
gress to determine how far it will go in
substituting preparedness for unprepared-
ness.
1T is said that the General Staff recon-
mends increasing the active regular army
to 100000 men. Such an increase is in
dispensable if we are to have military
establishment of the modern type. The
regular army is the cornerstone of any
military system. 1t must furnish the first
line, the staff organization, the nucleus Of
trained officers, the machinery for expan-
sion through the absorption of second and
third line material, without which the mill
tary strength of nation can never be
properly utilized. In war, as it is con-
Quoted to-day, trained officers come first
in Importance, then munitions. then un-
trained or half-trained troops. Every dol
lar spent on the development of regular
army is worth at least So spent on an
army of the militia type.
The administration reorganization plan
begins at the wrong end. Instead OF
building up the regular army it merely
aims at TRIPPING or quadrupling our supply
of UNDETERMINED troops. 1t creates a
great body of militia officers and thus d.
lutes the efficiency Of the officers corps as
a whole. 1t sets up demoralizing distinc-
ton between regulars and Continentals. If
the Continentals are called into being we
shall have two national armies, unlike in
quality, training and spirit, and there
fore exceedingly difficult to amalgamate in
case of need. We shall simply follow out
to another failure the disastrous Ameri-
can tradition of reliance on second and
third class troops which has caused such
a waste of blood and treasure in all our
wars.
1t is gratifying to The Tribune to note
the awakening of sentiment hostile to the
administration scheme of imitation pre-
paredness. In our issue of last Sunday
Colonel Church, the veteran editor of "The
Army and Navy Journal" gave his unvar-
nished opinion of the Garrison project.
1T is political report, not military re-
port" he said. Again: "The public has
been invited to assimiate sham and esteem
it sound wisdom" "The Army and Navy
Register" has also attacked the plan as
defiance of sound military judgment.
The Tribune stood alone among the New
York newspapers in exposing from the day
of its publication the fundamental errors
of the Garrison plan. 1t will have plenty
of compai. from now on. Congress must
remodel the administration plan, provid
ing first of all for an adequate enlarge
ment OF the regular army before it car
be considered as even a modest first step
toward genuine military efficiency.