The Farmington times. (Farmington, St. Francois County, Mo.) 1905-1926, 1917-04-13
are under construction.

| Army preparations are less COM
plete because Of the uncertainty over
what Congress will authorize. The
regulars, numbering nearly 100000
and trained and equipped in a way
which their officers believe matches
unit for unit the boosted efficiency of
Germany's best, are ready to respond
over night to whatever call may come.
The National Guard, 10000 strong,
and hardened by months of service at
the border, already has many units
in active service for police duty
throughout the country, and can be
fully modified on short notice. With
out additional authorization by Con-
gress, the regulars and guardsmen
could be recruited to combined
strength of 100000, and detailed
plans for whatever larger army may
be authorized have been prepared and
great quantities Of equipment for it
purchased.
Industrial preparation thanks to
lessons of the war and the patriotic
attitude of industry, have produced
great compact scheme of national re-
sources with almost unlimited posi-
bilities. The Council of National De-
Tense, in daily conferences with the
nations leading financial, CONNER
cial, scientific and labor chiefs, not
only has worked out a definite and de-
tailed industrial mobilization plan
but has secured the Endorsement and
pledges of the men which can put it
| into effect at q moments notice,
bringing to the military arms of SER
vice the full resources of the richest
nation, organized with characteristic
Yankee skill and business thorough
ness.
Every Resource Strained.
For military reasons only a small
part of the detail of these prepara-
tions has been permitted to reach the
public. 1t is known, however. that
for many months the Government has
considered war more than a POSSIBLE
ity and has strained it's every resource
to make ready. In the tense waiting
period since relations were broken,
the President, while hoping fervent-
| ly that hostilities could be avoided
has kept the whole machinery of the
Government in motion day and night
|
any close observer at the Capital it
now is apparent that Germany has
again misjudged, if she thought to
find the United States hopelessly i'm
potent and unprepared.
The navy, in order to complete in
record time the enormous building
program outlined by Congress, has
enlisted in the public service virtually
the entire shipbuilding facilities of the
country; surveys have been made of
merchant craft that would be avail
able as auxiliaries in war time, and
guns have been placed on many of
them; plans are complete for imme-
diately taking over into the naval es-
adjustments the sturdy cutters of the
Coast Guard Service, more than a
score Of steamers equipped for mine
laying and belonging to the light
house service, and the scientifically
fitted vessels of the Bureau of Fish
cries and the Coast and Geodetic Sur
vey.
$IOO,OOO,OOO Being Spent.
In order to expedite naval construc-
ton more than S100,000,000 is being
spent on naval and private shipyards.
The eight-hour labor regulation as ap-
| plying to naval work has been sus-
pended by order of the President, and
various agencies are helping to in
sure an adequate supply of skilled
and unskilled labor. Builders have
laid aside private work on which pro-
fits amount to as much as so per cent
TO give precedence to navy work on
basis of cost plus 10 per cent pro-
| fit.
Detailed plans have been worked
out through months of study by spe-
cial navy board for realigning the
whole system of naval bases, Recon-
mendations are before Congress and
as soon as authorization is given the
establishment of new bases and the
enlargement of existing ones can be-
gin. Around some of the bases and
other stragetic coast points great
steel submarine nets, each 1,050kkww
steel submarine nets have been swung
and contracts have been awarded for
1000 more nets, each 1850 feet in
length.
Recruits Flock In.
In addition to the 1873 midshipmen
commissioned ahead of time, ano-
Their class of more than 200 will be
graduated at Annapolis in Septem-
ber For the first time clerical and
other shore positions in the navy have
been opened to women, and recruit
ing stations have been unable to han
die the flood of applications of men
and women which has followed Sec
rotary Daniels call for recruits. There
is boom in recruiting for the ma
rine corps, too, which has been raised
to an authorized war strength of IT,
400, and soon is to be further increas-
ed. Passage of the war resolution is
the signal for mobilization of $4,000
naval militiamen and reserves to sup
port the regulars.