Arizona republican., 1916-01-20
GENERAL WOOD SAYS COAST
LINE IS OPEN To ATTACK

! lens it would have to meet At least |
100000 men would be needed, he as
serted. and they could be obtained, |
he believed, only by compulsory |
measures
AT present there are but zoo, 900 |
modern rifles and 100000 old model |
weapons in government arsenals, he
said, and up to five days ago the
capacity of all American plants to
produce rifles was only % 1000 day.
England alone, he said, wanted $4,000
a day, while France called for two
rifles IN reserve for every man in the
field.
General Wood was positive in as
sorting that the national guard was
composed Of a fine personnel, but
| cursed by a hopeless system. unless it
could be taken over by the govern
ment and severed from any connec-
! ton with the states, he said it would
be abandoned to the states entirely
and not a dollar of government money
wasted upon it.
we should terminate the intoler
able system he added. The SOL
der element of the national guard
all want liberalization. No man who
refuses to come into the continental
army is to be depended upon
Under a universal service system,
| the general said there would be $780,
| 0OO men between IS and % years old
upon whom the burden of military
duty would rest, counting on only 30
| per cent of the men at that, age. He
| believed, however, that every citizen
should be held liable fdr some duty
to the government in case of war.
! General Wood, asked Senator
Chamberlain, IAN unframed army
never could have resisted Germany
on the French frontier, could it,
They never would have known
what hit en-" General Wood an
swered.
A vital factor in the present stu
alton, he told the committee, was the
necessity for building up an officers
reserve corps. With 10000 students
in the land grant colleges under mill
! tarv training, and every important
higher educational institution offering
officers training units, he thought 1t
would be an easy thing to build up
the forces of $4,000 officers necessary.
Asked what need there was now for
preparedness that did not exist a year
ago, General Wood said there were
storm signals on all sides and no one
knew when the lightning would strike
The developments of the last year,
both to the south of us and abroad
he said. indicate that we need to be
prepared"
on the question of coast defense,
he said. the present guns were able
70 reach range of $4,000 yards if
mounted for a A degree elevation
The trouble was with the gun car
rage. he said, which limited their fire
to 1900 wards, whereas European
navy craft were sinking ships at over
1000 Yards He placed the United
States navy fourth among those OF
the world powers, Great Britain, ia
pan and Germany exceeding 1t IN
strength.
The general said belligerent gov
ernments were buying by the tens
Of thousands the Lewis machine gun,
invented by an American officer OF
The coast artillery, now retired, ana
|
rejected by the ordnance bureau ne
cause of faulty material used in the
weapon supplied for tests. This gun
developed three years ago. he ex-
plained. antedated the one-man ma
chine gun of the German army ana
could be carried and fired IN any
Dosition by one man. He added tha'
if would he tested here again soon
To show some of the work under
,vav .hu the army, General Wood eX-
hibited the confidential plans for the
. defense of Boston. completed recently,
, after nine months of surveying aio
study. and including line OF defense
SO miles in length and minute IN de-
o tail. He said the civil engineers OIL
! the country were preparing to or
canize a reserve corps to aid IN sucf
= work in future.
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