The Goldfield news and weekly tribune. [volume] (Goldfield, Nev.) 1911-1947, 1917-08-04
AMERICAS RECORD IN WAR

That the achievements of the army and navy of the United
States in the first three months of the war have worked for
ward with a smoothness and an absence of scandal that have
no parallel i'll our history of warfare" is the editorial state
ment made by the Army and Navy Journal in a review of tn.
part this country is playing in the great struggle.
Criticism and fault-finding," says the Journal, have en-
tered like rumor painted with a thousand tongues but they
have pretty well disappeared since, in common decency, these
elements have to acknowledge the army and navy officers have
carried out their allotted tasks efficiently and WELL"
in material accomplishments we have set up" the Journal
says, "a record before the world of which we may well be
proud. The great outstanding fact of these three months of
war is that our military and naval operations have been con-
Quoted solely by army and navy officers, with never a 'polti-
cal general showing his head above the horizon.
Our navys personnel has almost doubled in that time, SC
that now we have over 10000 men in the navy, while in the
marine corps we have 29,96i, as against 1896 on April 6, the
day the state of war was declared. The auxiliary patrol fleet,
manned by the fleet naval reserve, is gradually assuming the
form of a really effective body of young men who. are learning
navy traditions more rapidly than would have been thought
possible six months ago.
Even greater than this has been the army's achievement
owing to the signal change that has come to the nations policy
regarding a large army since the entry of the United States
into the war. For on the army has devolved the task of in
creasing the regulars up to the war strength set by the ma
tional defense act and putting that arm on a war footing, while
it has also had to face and carry through the many problems
presented by training the national guard for duty overseas, pre-
pairing the plans for the first selective draft registration and
seeing that they were carried out, the plans for the working OF
the draft itself and for housing, provisioning and %equipping
the 100000 men that are to be in environments some time after
the first of September.
"Coincident with this the army has had to perform the hith-
eHo mheard-of task of conducting sixteen training schools fol
the making of officers and of three camps for the training of
officers of the medical reserve corps. Under-Officered as ev-
cry corps is in the service, they have had not only to struggle
along with the routine of the service, but also to handle the
problems of this enormous expansion of the regulars, the ma
tional guard and the national army that is in the making.
And with all this the army has sent General Pershing and
his staff, General Sibert and his expeditionary force; has taken
over completely the conduct. of six of the British base hospitals;
has sent army surgeons up to the firing line; has landed the
first unit of wOodsmen in England fully equipped with saw
mills and other tools, and has at least one unit of aviators on
British soil. And nowhere at home has the routine of army
life been allowed to drop below it's accustomed efficiency, al
though the army has had to handle the additional task since
May 1 of creating two new departments and providing them
with headquarters staffs.
Europe has rung with praise of our men abroad, and our
enemy, by the tone of it's abusive language, is awakened to the
fact that we are a foe to be reckoned with in the field instead of
being merely a race of dollar hunters New York CONNER