Albuquerque morning journal. [volume] (Albuquerque, N.M.) 1903-1926, 1916-01-23
Head of War College Declares
Two Years Required to Train
lnfantrymen to Meet Sol
dierS Of Other Nations,
CONTINENTAL SYSTEM
BEST TO BE HAD NOW
Five Hundred Thousand Men
With ColorS or Reserve and
Million Men Partly Trained
Believed Necessary,
rav MORNING JOURNAL SPECIAL lrAsso w,srl

fHY MORNING JOURNAL SPECIAL tth6tu wiRfl
| Washington. Jan. 22.-National pol
icies of the United States particular
| ly maintenance of the Monroe doe
trine, an open door in the orient, SUI
premacy in the Pacific, and Asiatic
exclusion. can be upheld only II back
ed by force, Brigadier General Mont
gomery NJ. McComb, president Of the
army war college, told the senate mill
itary committee today. The tradition
that entangling alliances should be
avoided, he declared. further cmpha-
sized the necessity that the United
states be prepared to fight alone for
its ideals.
Unless there is force behind these
policies" he said. they will not play
an important part in the history of the
world
General McComb, who appeared at
a hearing on the army increase meas
ures, suggested that the Monroe doc
trine was tending toward development
of Pan-Ameriean entente which
might or might not be a good thing
but did not alter in his opinion the
argent necessity of military prepared
ness.
war College Program.
General MeComb said the war col
lege had taken the policies he mem
toned as the basis Of its study to
formulate d definite military policy.
With these obligations in mind, he
added, the college had produced the
plan already made public for a regu-
lar army of 100000 men with the
colors or reserve within eight years
and q continental army Of million
men in the same time.
Brigadier General Albert L. Mills.
chief of the war department division
of military affairs. preceded General
McComb and endorsed the plans pro-
posed by Secretary Garrison, which
are a. modification of the war college
proposals. He said inherent difficult
ties in the way of using the organized
militia in place of continental army
seemed insurmountable, and outlined
many faults of the national guard sys-
TEN from national point Of view.
Among these were lack of proper
reserves to supply war wastage; lack
of auxiliary arms; inadequate train
ing; constantly changing personnel
and lack of uniformity of state mill
tary codes.
National Guard Defective.
These conditions produce" said
General Mills, forty EIGHT little state
armies organized without reference to
national needs and each clinging ieal-
ously to certain state rights"
General McComb differed from a
recent statement of the adjutant gem
eral that 100000 men was the largest
force that could be maintained under
present enlistment regulations.
He states that it is impossible to
recruit more men than that. General
McComb said, but that Is only his
opinion. He doesn't know what he
can do beyond that for he has not
tried.
Judging from his experience as
observer in the Russian Jap
anese. war, General McComb said
most people utterly miscalculated the
amount of training necessary for an
soldier. On the infantry, he
said, depended the final outcome OF
any fight. He estimated ii would take
two years of five hours of intensive
work a day. ITO make what we call
good soldier"