Forest City press. (Forest City, Potter County, D.T. [S.D.]) 1883-19??, 1916-02-02

shall pay so eNtravagen,ly for each
soldier that VIC can never hope to af-
ford to have one.
Our army has been the plaything Of
politics. 1t has been an enforced bur
den ON the tax payers. With AN army
administration absolutely honest, the
amount spent for the return received
Is enough to raise the price of sugar to
90 cents a pound, If applied to HE
sugar business. and of flour to $50 a
AS one army officer said: w have
everything in our army except sol
diers and guns" our magnificent
plants are the homes of handfuls OF
men. They are like "A knitting fac
tory. which ought to have a thousand
looms. running with IL dozen. Mean
while. the United States pays the rent
and upkeep.
rake for example, Governors island,
across from New York, where you all
nos nave to hunt to find a soldier.
The value of it as a piece of real es-
tate may be judged by that Of the
enormous skyscrapers Just across the
river from it in lower Broadway. A
French UT German brigade, if not di-
vision, could be maintained at Gov
ernor's island. Waste of material and
OF property is the result of our sys-
tenn of ga%rrisoning this and other
posts.
All CAiISSkS are IlOl 10 NIaIno.
They are simply discouraged. Nobody
Is to blame except the American peo-
pie. They get what congress arranges
for them. and they make congresses.
And congress is not so wickedly to
blame, as we might think. Congress
is human. II has been careless. 1t
has not concentrated periodically on
the problem.
Perhaps if we apply the present
public emotion for preparedness as in
the past, every congressional district
may have it's own army post. At pres
ent they are distributed all over the
country. h middle west. the Pa
cific coast. the southwest and the
east have their share. The idea has
not been that h army should be an
efficient institution, but that it stood
TOR a certain expenditure of money
that should be fairly distributed
among the constituencies. 1t is less
a practical army than a system Of
largess for communities.
In Europe the army posts are dis
trlbuted according to tactical plans
FOR quick concentration in case OF war.
Hence the prompt concentration in
1914. Germany had 1900, 900 men on
Billie 100, 600.
Team Play in Europe's Armies.
When an army goes to war all the
parts of it must fight together. 1t
is h most complex and most deli
cately adjusted of all organizations be-
cause the fnal test of it's efficiency
is the resolutely facing of death. While
lack of team play in a business or
g%anization may mean. business dis
aster. lack OF team play in an army
means national disaster. Team play
is the study of European staffs. They
exist to develop it ready for war.
Any attempt of the United States
army to develop team play is immedi-
ately stified. Our army organization
is OF the watertight compartment kind.
We shall bring the men from each
compartment who have never met each
other. and chuck artillery. cavalry and
infantry together in . heterogeneous
mass. and then we shall wonder what
Is the matter when there is confusion
and failure If we ever have to go
against q first class power which will
have an army whose parts have
worked together with all the thorough
ness of a college football or profess
sional baseball team.
At West Point. where we train
young men to be officers. they live to-
gether. drill together. they become a
homogeneous force for fOur years. But
after their education is finished we
separate them and keep them in
isolated pasts.
0uCn WAS tile misfortune OF the
British army. policing many colonies
but we have not many colonies. Our
officers have no chance to really work
together in the organization OF their
troops as an integral force.
In every army post you see a lot OF
soldiers cleaning up lawns and doing
different kinds of fatigue duty. The
men live in barracks across from the
officers houses. That is a relic of the
old frontier post days when everybody
against Indian attacks. Neither the
officers nor the men have private life,
The Hard Working European Officer;
The Idle American Officer.
In Europe the officers live away from
the men when they are not on duty
with them.
Taking 65 men as an average to q
company. we have almost three times
the ratio of officers OF any European
army. That ratio Is one commissioned
officer to 80 men, which 10 generally
accepted in all services as the right
proportion.
We boast that The average American
ts moro intelligent than the avera9e
European. That being true, why do
wO need more thar. two Officers FOL
every 50 mel instead Of one? u II
because West Point dOes not turn out
lee GOOD Q type q st. Cyr In France OF
19andhurst In EnglAnd7 3 it because
the American soldier u moro stupid
and tako more time TO learn his dr3ll1
No. Wet Point - the most thorough
q military schools. Il - because ouI
Z