The daily Alaskan., 1917-03-13

f ddWdu. 1ueSe COuIu pLOuuCC dAOLAeG 100000 men of military age.
 France is said now to have one per son out of every six in her population serving in the army or navy. If the United States and her insular posses sions ever made such an effort, talk ing the present population as 112,0O0,- 900, the president would have at his disposal no less than 18,666,666 men.
 This Is probably more men than Ger many, Austria-Hungary Bulgaria and Turkey together have In the field to- day.
 UnapproaShed Industrial Power. If the unOrganized manhood strength of the United States Is imposing, the industrial capacity of the nation Is , even more impressive.
 With less than one-tenth of the worlds population, we make nearly one-third of all the things produced.
 In iron and steel, for instance, we turn out more than Great Britain and Germany, the two next largest pro ducers, do together. Some observers have estimated the present industrial capacity of the Unit ed States at as much as all the rest or the world put together. While this IS perhaps an overestimate, large scale production has been carried to such a, fine point here that no nation can ap- prOach us in the total produced per worker.
 The average American produces more per hour of labor than the citizen of any other nation. We rely on mechan- Ical power three times more per man than does Great Britain, four times more than Germany and five times more than France.
 The committee on industrial prepar- edness of the naval consulting board is just about completing an inventory of the nations war resources. While the organization which was to result from this inventory has only just been started, the work of investigation done indicates in the dearest manner the factory strength of this country.
 In a preliminary report Howard D. Coffin, chairman of the committee, stat ed that there are more than 3O,OOO manufacturing concerns in the United States which can render important service in the event of war. No plant Is included in this list whose annual output is less than S10O,OOO. The inventory is in the hands of the great engineering societies of the coun- try, which have had committees at work in every state.
 The United States marine corps Is independent of both the army and the navy, and it's small strength should perhaps be added to that of the two main services when estimating the to- tai organized belligerent power of the nation. The authorized strength Of the corps is 15,627 officers and men Of all classificatiOns, and the ranks are near ly full
 Various schemes for army reserve bodies were incorporated In the na- tional defense act of last year, but these provisions have not been in force long enough to produce results Of i'm portance. For instance, of 5O,OOO re- serve officers provided for q total or less than 500 has been commissioned. Organization of the Army.
 The commander in chief of the army las of the navy also) Is the president | of the United States.
 His representative, who carries out his wishes, is the secretary of war, Newton D. Baker.
 The directing force of the army Is the general staff. Major General Hugh L. Scott is now chief of staff, and his assistant is Major General Tasker H. Bliss. Grouped about them In Washington are army experts or l various ranks, who are supposed to do the thinking about general problems for the whole army.
 Should the United States send mill tary expedition abroad the commander would undoubtedly be one of the seven | active major generals. These are given below, with their present assignments and headquarters:
 Leonard Wood, eastern department, Governors island, New York.
 J. Franklin Bell, western department San Francisco.
 Thomas II. Barry, central depart ment, Chicago.
 Frederick Funston, southern depart ment, Fort Sam Houston, Texas.
 Hugh L. Scott, chief of staff, general staff, Washington.
 Tasker H. Bliss, general staff, Wash | ington.
 John J. Pershing, Eighth brigade, ] Columbus, N. M.
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