The Hays free press. [volume] (Hays, Kan.) 1908-1924, 1916-08-05

are required for army in the field
Each truck carried four troopers in olive drab
SQuatted 1nSecurely top of the load.
Inc road was uneven, it full of ruts, but the
auto truck train gded along at the rate of from eight
to ten miles an hour. The vehicles kept perfect
alignment The troopers swOre softly but earnestly
the trucks jolted
Even as the army mule watched. the sweating swear
ing truck train disappeared into cloud OF dust be-
,yond the border line Then the tilted back his
detected head and gave vent to one
far-reaching vocal effort AS though hooking his
grief the horns of the auto trucks footed back de-
risively in the distance.
The grief of that army mule was the grief of Othe
10 with his occupation gone He sunk behind Soto
cactus and subsidized into painful meditation. He had
just his finish.
He realized at that moment that the army mule
would never again hold high place among the fac
tors which win battles He realized that practical
poets would no longer sing of the virtues the
army mule could display upon great emergencies He
was already obsolete down and out.
Even the mule skinner" with the picturesque vo-
cabulary and the hard words. had abandoned him
The mule skinner driving of those
auto trucks, and was addressing it with strained
polteness when he spoke to it at all.
1t was all wrong. By the martyred mule of
Matanzas. of which the army bards sang during the
Spanish-American days, it all wrongI
There was no use to pull against the truck
He had tried it when they hitched him to the
OF one. He decided to drag the thing back the
desert. But, instead, he relentlessly dragged
on his launches for mile, and he gave it up.
The Columbus expedition has demonstrated that
in the matter of army transportation "the mule is
dead. long live the auto truck!' 1t had already
been demonstrated at the battle OF the Marne,
when motor vehicles checked the German advance
and saved France.
But war department moves with excessive
deliberation It chung tenaciously to it's faith in
the mule until the first auto truck train
galumphing into Mexico making three times the
distance that mule could make roads which
no motor-driven vehicle could be expected to
travel.
The consequence was a rush order for auto
trucks and drivers. The auto trucks standing
up wonderfully well. They plow through the aIkali
dust up to the hubs they jolt the rocky
places they founder through the sandy wastes that
grind the bearings, and they puff through the
mountain passes. They go anywhere the mule will
GO and they get there in better time.
While the long trail from Columbus Nami-
.Quipa is lined with the carcasses of mules and
horses, the auto trucks go rumbling in their
work of keeping the field army supplied with food
and ammunition They perform new miracles
upon every emergency.
There are several hundred auto trucks at the
army base at Columbus. On pinch those trucks
could entire brigade in one day twice
far as all the horses and mules in the world could
move it. This is true despite the fact hat many
OF the trucks badly racked because of bad
driving
Not only does the successful test of the auto
truck spell the passing of the mule train 1t
also means the passing of cavalry, the most pic
turesque branch of the service. Even cavalry Off
GERS in the punitive expedition Will admit thar
three four auto trucks will get company of in
fantry twice as far forced march as the best
mounted troop of cavalry could travel.
l. Cavalry charges rare in these days OF rapid
fire rifles and machine guns. The horses used
only to get the men to the front, where they OPP
crate infantry. When the gasone-fed mounts
can get them there much faster than the horses
it begins to look bad for the cavalry horse.
The United States army of the future will
travel extensively gasoline. There will be few
more heart breaking infantry hikes. and there will
be few more wild cavalry rides. leaving in their
wake dead and dying horses. Even field artillery
can be carried by the auto trucks
All of this should have been realized before. One
of the lasting benefits Of the punitive expedition
viii be the undermining of the military transpor-
tation branch. The auto truck has passed the
stern test.
For the present the auto truck trains with the
army in Mexico are not working under any definite
system The organization of the truck train of the
United States army has not been decided upon.
Neither has the type of truck to be used in the
organization been decided upon. Captains and
lfeutenants are busy taking notes as to net mile
age and gasoline requirements: Also TO stability
and reliability of the different makes of trucks In
the service.
The drivers are mixed lot. Some are regular