The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1915-06-28

blunder along, each by itself, without agreement or settled plan. It was pol itics that now had sent their plucky, intelligent, capable young men into the field insumcientIy equipped, trained or organized. It was politics that now left their cities bare, to be made a sport of
 Not one in a thousand of the vo1un- teers ever had built a fire of sticks, or pitched tent or even washed dish es. Not one of five thousand ever had held a gun in his hands. There were thousands there, and thousands again, who did not even know what it was to be in the dark, for they had slept all their lives in the electrically lighted city.
 It was not men that the regular army needed. It was reserves! And never congress of all the congresses that had talked and voted and Appropriated had voted a practical system of army re serves!
 Of all the men who had been trained by previous army experience, the war department could not call on one un- less he chose to volunteer If those men-invaluab4e to the country at this moment-offered themselves, they of  there and everywhere. scattered through a land of 3,250,OoO square miles. Enlisted thus, they were futile Individuals lost in hordes of raw re cruits.
 While. the United States, civilian and military. was working hopelessly to make up in desperate hours for long years of waste, the efficient, prepared, resourcefu1 invader was landing his army, not only without losing a man, but without getting a mans feet wet. So perfect were the dispositions of this expedition that the commander had been able to order, Our troops must land perfectly dry,'' and the order was carried out.
 Every transport had three broad gangways to a side. Never for mo ment were these gangways bare of equipped men, moving file after file into the enormous fiat bottomed land ing barges. Never for a moment was the sea without long tows of them, each bearing POO men to shore with their rifles between their knees, ready.
 In the camp of the United States army at that moment men were break ing green horses for cavalry and artil- lery purposes. On the coast the enc my's four decked horse transports were sending trained mounts into broad floats with derricks and s1ings, lowering away with head and tail lines to prevent struggling.
 Nothing had been forgotten, nothing left to be improvtsed. The horse floats had hinged sterns. Backed into the beach, these hinged boards dropped down and formed gang blanks. Sail ors threw collision mats on them to prevent slipping. It required less than 8 minute to lower horse from the ships to the floats. In less than half minute each horse was unloaded from them and set ashore. To empty each to have each craft off the beach and under tow again for another load was a matter of less than forty minutes.
 Almost as swiftly, at another end of the beach, guns were being landed wide beamed, that could be run well up on shore and could withstand the pounding of the surf.
 Yet the beach never was occupied for a moment The guns were rushed the horses were rushed inland. Twelve hours after the first landing party had prepared the way Rhode Island was occupied by 3O,ooO foot, 5000 cavalry and 50 batteries of artillery-almost two full divisions that lay in great belLigerent front snarIing with guns a perfect, complex, often assembled, often tested machine.
 Under average conditions it is pos GI1ala- to -lanA< a 0ao -infantrz. zOoa cs1@-