Vilas County news. [volume] (Eagle River, Vilas County, Wis.) 1896-1927, 1917-10-31
AMERICAS ARMY
MUST Be MODERN
THAT is REASON WHY SOME
STATE REGIMENTS WILL
LOSE IDENTITY.
PROTESTS MUST BE IGNORED
Consolidation Is Necessary to Conform
to System Of Our AlIies-Officers,
Unless Unfit, VII! Not Be Reduced
in Rank.
BY EDWARD 3. CLARK.

| BY EDWARD 3. CLARK.
| Washington.-Thes secretary of war,
and with him the military officers OF
| his department, are DESTROYS that MEM
bers of National Guard organizations
should understand that 1t is nothing
| but the necessities of a military case
which have compelled the authorities
to order a consolidation of some of the
state regiments which thereby neces-
sarily largely must lose their identity.
kilograms and letters of protest
against the consolidation of different
state regiments into one still are pour
| ing into the department, and the civil
| ian officials and the army officers I'M
questionably are perturbed because OF
the attitude of officers and men of
some of the Guard organizations to-
ward consolidation.
1t appears that rather than to lose
it's identity as the Fighting Fiftieth, or
the Keokuk Blues, or the Kalamazoo
Cracks, some of the Guard regiments
would prefer that military wisdom be
foregone and that they be allowed to
| go into the fight against the Germans
| in their old formations, which would
| mean to enter the battle in a manner
| not approved by students of modern
warfare.
l have been asked personally by one
of the highest military officials in the
| United States to write an explanation
| of why those consultations of regi-
| ments are necessary, and why 1t is
| that some officers, temporarily at least,
must lose their positions of first COM
maIfd.
Pershlng Urged the Change.
| It was General Pershing who urged
| on the American military authorities
| the necessity of having the regimental
| formations correspond to those of the
| French and British now actually on the
! fighting line. Three years of trench
work and such open field work as there
has been have proved that complete
| change in the regimental formations
| must be made. The war department,
wishing to do what it can to insure so
| far as is possible quick victory, has no
| alternative but to change the old or
ganization plan.
Under the new rule regiment must
| contain about $500 men. This makes
| 1t absolutely necessary that some
| Guard regiments shall be combined to
make a new regiment The whole sys-
| tenn of organization has undergone a
| change. The necessity of machine gun
| troops has made it imperative that
some regiments shall be split into
smaller units for rattle fire. gun for
nations. The war department realizes
that in measure this splitting of regi-
| ments is to the men like the breaking
| up of home ties, but war is on and the
! war must be fought along modern lines
and therefore the changes absolutely
| are necessary.
| There is one colonel to regiment.
| When two existing regiments are COM
bined into one it means that the Junior
| colonel must be displaced from COM
| mand, or if it shall be deemed wise
from the military sense to put the Jun
for in chief command, the senior feels
that he had been sighted.
| No Officer to Lose His Rank.
/ 1t can be said, however, that no col
onel, unless found unfit, will lose his
rank. He will be attached to a regi-
ment ready to take command in case
the actual commander is incapacitated
/ or transferred. In other words, the adj
| ditional colonel will in a sense be q
| lieutenant colonel, although keeping
l aEc, Il
onel of an outfit always has been a sort
of a supernumerary.
Other officers than the colonies will
be affected, but every man who is fit
| for the service will stay in 1t at the
rank which he holds. 1t will be no
news probably to most of the officers
of the army, regulars or National
Guardsmen. that If they prove their
unfitness to command men in the pres.
ent crisis-out they will go.
New Anesthetic Being Tested.
Washington officials. particularly
those of the medical department
and presumably all persons who
have heard or read anything or
the subject. are interested in an arti
Gle written by Edgar Ansel Mowrel
which appears in Golfers Weekly OF
September %. It gives in detail as
founding accounts of the pain-relievins
work which 1t Is claimed an anesthetit
called nikalgin, the discovery of lay
man, Gordon Edwards, has accom-
plished In the war hospitals of Eng
land and France.
If this discovery will do what 1t |!
claimed 1t will do, there is reason
enough for the interest In 1t which ha.
been aroused 1t has been my attemp
q TO find out something about nikalgir
and its possible or probable use as {
local anesthetic by the medical depart
ment of the United States government