The Hawaiian gazette., 1915-09-28

an editorial discussion Of the proposed civilian
training camp to- be held in Texas, the after
noon paper concluded with this sentence: "In
Hawaii some OF the national guard officers rather
incline to the view that civilian camp for few
weeks only will do more harm than good, as it
will diminish interest in the established guard
without supplying instruction of permanent
valuep -"
1t is difficult to believe that this is a general
opinion among our national guard officers. There
have been scores of letters from national guards
men. published in the New York papers express
ing somewhat the same view of the camp recently
held at Plattsburg and there have been as many
from other officers emphatically stating that the
good work done at that camp cannot fail to help
recruiting in the guard and to spur it to higher
standard of field training, ,r 10 WIN r. alaw
The excellent results obtained incthe expert
mental encampment of business men at Platts-
burg under the supervision of regular army Off
GERS seem to have been most encouraging to all
concerned. The idea of this experiment, and that
of the other camps the mainland or of the
proposed camp here in Hawaii is not to trans
form citizens within four weeks into complete
soldiers, but to start them on the road to lean
soldering, so that, if they should be called as
volunteers to the defense of the country, they
would at least be prepared partly for the ardu-
Gus duties they would be called on to perform
In order to carry out President Wilson's idea of
trained citiZenry" in country, where COM
pulsory service is distasteful to our citizens at
argc, il is necessary to provide means for train
ing civilians. -.. 49,
| Inc national guard of the country is an inn
pQrtant organization, second only to the regulat
army IN our landfdefenses. The permanent army
will always be comparatively small, population
considered, and the national guard will always
Include in its membership only a small part of
the citizens of any State or Territory IT,. &
Military service in the national guard is con-
tlnuouS and exacting and the guardsman has
muc' more to do than his yearly service in camp
With the completion of the plans of the war de-
partment to be presented to congress in this COM
ing session it is expected that measures will
be taken to make the guard much more formid-
able and dependable force, but if ever we should
have war the country will require the immediate
services of hundreds of thousands more men than
are now enrolled in the army and the national
The civilian camp grew out of the student
camp idea, started two years ago, which was
established Tor this very reason to prepare men
in civil life for service in time of war n. "a .i
; 4 he FlattSbprg camp has naturally attracted
a great deal of notice, more. probably than its
actual military importance justified because of
the very large number of men of prominence ir
many walks Of civil life who took part in it, be.
cause OF the unusual degree Of individual pro-
hclency, especially in craftsmanship, that has
been reported and because of the public interest
OF such men among unusual surroundings. g..
1t is probable that these men will have an
opportunity to keep up their military studies In
TACT, the war department hopes to keep it up by
q correspondence course and an invitation to at
tend second camp next summer Doubtless
many Of them will avail themselves of this oppor-
tunity. Undoubtedly many of them will join the
national guard of their several States n
After all the principal value Of these camps is,