The Dickinson press., 1916-06-03

quate number of common soldiers,
but there is a still more serious lack
in officers, and in skilled men for the
handling of modern implements of
warfare. If we were to be suddenly
forced into war we would find, as the
official reports show, that there are
not enough skilled gunners in the
forts for one shift, and all the am
munition we have for the guns of
those forts could be shot away in
forty-five minutes.
Mr.. Bryan tells us "The people of
this country will never depart from
the time honored policy Of a small
army and no reserves" Every sane
mar knows that the observance of
this slime honored policy" is what
has cost us such a large unnecessary
sacrifice of life and treasure in the
various wars we have had. When an
unframed and poorly differed army
is pitted against a thoroughly dis
ciplined and efficiently differed army
the odds against it are as ten to one,
and sometimes a twenty to one. In
the war of 1912 the British never had
more than 10000 soldiers on our
shores at any one time,-they had
another war on their hands and could
not spare more soldiers for this one
while we had, first and last, over
$4,000, yet we lost every battle on
land but one, and that was the battle
of New Orleans. In that same war
the city of Washington was defended
by 5,400 U. S. soldiers, yet it was cap
tured, sacked and burned by 1900
British soldiers, and the British lost
but eight men. These facts are not
written in u various histories of the
United States, for they were written
to glorify Americans; but they are
well established facts. The Ameri-
can soldier was not inferior in cour-
age, strength and endurance to the
British soldier, but he had not been
adequately trained. The United
States had been following the "time
honored policy of a small army and
no reserves" and when the war of
1872 began we had to make up an
army mainly of raw, unframed men
in the hands of incompetent officers.
The results was a wicked and useless
sacrifice of thousands of the choicest
young men Of the country. An army
of 10000 we'll drilled and differed
men would have won the war of 1872
in much quicker time than did the
army Of $4,000, and they would have
won it with much greater glory and
much less loss Of life and property.
The al of the Rebellion teaches
the slime lesson of the price the
country has to pay for unprepared-
ness. Men of sense know perfectly
well that if Lincoln could have had
even $4,000 we'll trained, we'll equip
ped and we'll differed men at the be-
ginning of the war that it would have
been over in the three months he
supposed it would last. Not having
such an army he had to call for vol
unteers and send them into the war
without any training whatever. He
kept calling for volunteers, finally
having to resort to conscription, I'M
til he had called 2,778,3 O4. Of this
number 399,944 men and 1854 offic-
ers died in battle or from disease in
camp. More than half of those who
came home were wounded. Besides
this awful price which we had to pay
in killed and wounded through beng
unprepared, there was the enormous
cost in money. The one item of pen
sions alone has already cost us more
than four thousand millions of dol
lars. A few millions of dollars spent
in preparedness would have saved
thousands upon thousands of precious