New Britain herald., 1916-03-24
ONLY TWO AGAINST REORGAN|zING ARMY
Hay Bill Providing for 140,000
 Soldiers Easily Passed

l Washington, March I4.-Ine day ] bill for, the reorganization and in- ] crease of the army was passed yester- l day by the House by vote of 402 | to g. Fred A. Britten, Republican, of | Illinois, and Meyer London. Socialist, of New York, cast the opposing votes. MT. Britten explained that he did not
 regard the bill, which provides an
 army of 10000 men, as a real pre- paredness measure.
 That the House may be persuaded
 eventually to accept bill from the Senate providing for larger standing
 army was demonstrated by record
 vote on the Kahn amendment pro-
 posing an army of 220,000. This
 amendment was defeated 213 to 191,
 a majority of 22. The "big army'
 strength in the House was a surprise
 to the author of the amendment The
 amendment had been defeated in
 committee on the whole, but the
 house agreed by unanimous consent to have a rollcall on the proposal be- fore taking the final vote on the pas sage of the bill.
 The large vote for the Kahn amend
 
 senate and house send their respective army bills to conference the compro- mise bill may provide for an army of 160,000 or more. On the Kahn amendment thirty-four Republicans voted against the big army plan and thirtythr Democrats for it. Party lines were not closely followed on the several rollcalls taken on the bilL he vit 1F stood by the committee bill as framed by Chairman Hay of the military af- fairs committee and the republicans gave the greater amount of support to proposed amendments
 Short-Term Enlistments..
 The military committee met two deteats. By vote of 2O4 to 19s the house adopted the amendment of- fered by Representative Augustus P. Gardner of Massachusetts, making posslole short-term enlistment, This amendment provides that after one years active service an enlisted man may be turned into the reserve. pro- Vlded his commanding officer at- tests that he is a proficient soldier. me enlisted man going into the re- serve after one year of active service would be subject to call for six years and correspondingly the longer the term with the colors the shorter with the reserve.
 under the plan originally proposed 1 Tn the Hay bill. every enlisted man would serve three years with the ,olors and four years in the reserve. 1 On the Gardner amendment, which lad been informally adopted during ipb9tp with the result that the committee provision was again rejected for the 'hort-ternn enlistment idea.
 The committee again met defeat | when on motion of Representative | Mckenzie of Illinois a Republican, the House struck from the bill the pro- 1 vision looking to the esta ablishment | of nitrate plant in which the Gov- ernment would have an interest | through aid to private capital The l paragraph read:
 That, to provide for the fixitation l of atmospheric nitrogen by the de- l velopment of water power or any l other means necessary to establish, an | adequate supply of nitrogen, the ap- 1 propriation of such sum or sums of 1 money to construct the necessary ] plant for such purpose is hereby au- thorized."
 While the bill did not go into de- 1 tails Tn regard to the methods of ] providing this nitrate plant, 1t was that eventually the plan would call for an outlay of approxi- mately Sl3,0O0.000 by the Govern ment' this sum to be advanced to private parties who would enter into a contract with the Government for the supply of water power and this amount of capital Such n,ar+ the committee contended, could be utilized in the manufacture of fer uhzers in time of peace and high l explosives in time of war.