New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1916-10-28
The Aviation Reserve


I.lans for a Reserve Aviation Service,
explained in another column, is that
they are not built on the sands OF
the National Guard.
There has been much feeling IN
discussing the National Guard. Its
supporters have treated public criti-
cism as a sort Of personal attack
ike public criticism of mans club,
his college or his church. Privately
they would admit faults and defects,
but they must down the public
critics.
The National Guard has served
the country for several decades. Its
members. past and present, deserve
public gratitude. There is scarcely a
state in which the Guard has not
heen called out during the last ten
wears to sustain the flabby arm OF
the law as represented by fat police
men and bucolic sheriffs in towns and
counties knowing not the New York
police force or the Pennsylvania
State Constabulary.
This has been a dirty and thank
less duty, for which the National
Guard is not rightly trained nor
properly armed. Quelling mobs is
not taught in close order, drill or
skirmish formation. 1t requires
knowledge of the cowardly, brutal
mob psychology. The army rifle that
kills innocent citizens mile from the
scene of disorder is no weapon for
this business. The night stick, not
the bayonet, is needed. Yet the
Guard has done this dirty job, its
members CHANGING trial for murder
before juries prejudiced by labor dis
putes, if mistakes occurred in the
course of their duty.
- Long before the Plattsburg camps
were invented a hundred thousand
National Guardsmen were giving up
enc night each week and two weeks
of their vacations trying to fit them
selves for the military obligations of
citizenship. Hundreds Of National
Guard officers have sacrificed their
social pleasures and to some extent
their business in an endeavor to meet
the growing exactions of their mill
tary commissions. This kind OF SER
vice is not so attractive as four
Z weeks at Plattsburg, with several
hundred friends, being made pros
pective officers under stimulating tut
ton from the regular army.
rs In the last two years Of public con-
Germ over our pitiful defencelessness
the Plattsburg rookie has received
public respect and private admira-
ton. During our years Of peace
dreams National Guardsmen got only
amused tolerance from their friends,
while the public generally supposed
they were sustained in their three to
five years service by parades, mill
. .tary bands and dress uniforms.
When the Continental army plan
, came out, ignoring the National
Guard and leaving it to die Of mani
ton, small wonder that the hun
dred and twenty thousand National
= -Guardsmen and some quarter of a
million who had done their bit in
\ the Guard were disgruntled. The
Il parable Of the vineyard has never
been part Of the ordinary mans no
ton Of justice, and it did not take
long TO find joints in the armor Of
the Continental army. That was
soon shown 20 be stovepipe, anyhow.
49, Yet most officers and men Of the
National Guard know in their hearts
that il is not and never can be a real
second line Of defence. The regular
army has known that all along. Only
the public has been fooled by this
kind Of paper preparedness. 1t was
willing TO be fooled again by the Hay
bill make-believe. The ASS legs IN
der that lions skin can be seen clear
ly from across the ocean, perhaps
even from Mexico.
But while we go on thinking that
the world will be afraid Of our new
Ion, the regular army Watchdog
must do the best they can. "Theiri
not 10 reason why" And in these
/. plans for an Aviation Reserve under
direct organization, training and con
troll Of the regular army they have
done. well and deserve praise.
"a