The Colorado statesman., 1918-10-19
ONE YEAR COURSE
FOR WEST POINT
MILITARY ACADEMY is TO BE
UTILIZED TO THE FULL LIMIT
DURING THE WAR PERIOD.
TEACHING FLYERS "STUNTS"
Aviation Students to Learn the Aero
batics Quickly or Not at All-War
Department compels the Making Of
Clinical Thermometers.


of war has approved the recommenda-
tions of General March, chief of staff.
to graduate the two upper classes at
the United States Military academy on
November /, and to authorize one
year course at West Point for the re-
malnder of the war. 1t Is proposed to
utilize this valuable and expensive
institution, the war department an
nounces, to the limit during the period
of the war. The number of cadets
graduated each year from West Point
is now only about 200. Under the new
system 1t will be possible to graduate
1000 officers year.
Vacancies resulting from the gradu-
alton of the two upper classes will be
filed by the war department, If pos
slble, by the admission on November
1, 1918, of qualified candidates. APP
pointments will be made in the usual
way-through senators and represent
atives in congress, and other customary
channels. The war department de-
sires that candidates to be admitted
on November l shall be not under
eighteen years of age on that date.
AS the result of an investigation by
the war department, following the
failure of the medical department to
obtain supply of clinical thermome-
ters except at what were considered
exorbitant prices, the general staff has
ordered Is manufacturers in different
parts of the country to furnish about
66S,00 of the instruments, which are
urgently needed here and abroad.
Under these orders the war depart
ment will not only take the entire
stock of clinical thermometers now
manufactured, but will require the fac
tories to produce in large quantities
for 20 weeks. The compulsory order
specifies that the entire quantity must
be delivered by February 10, 1919.
The price of clinical thermometers
has advanced in the past year from %
cents and 80 cents to 80 cents and 60
cents each. The Investigations of the
military authorities disclosed a combi-
nation between the glass-blowers and
the makers Of thermometers.
The prices to be paid by the gov
ernment for the 66S, 900 thermometers
which have been requisitioned will be
fixed by the war department board of
appraisers.
One undertaking in connection with
the registration of more than 13,000,-
600 men for the draft. September u,
is Illustrated by figures by Provost
Marshal General Crowder. A statis-
tician in the provost marshals office
has calculated that If all the printed
forms distributed since August Z in
connection with the work of registra-
ton, classification and mobilization
were placed in pile ten feet square
1t would tower above the ground to a
height of SS7 feet, or more than one
and a half times the altitude of Wash
ington monument.
Altogether there have been printed
and shipped out, since August Z, 224-
100000 forms of all kinds, weighing
100000 pounds, and measuring, in the
aggregate, SS,7S7 cubic feet. A total
of A, 900 mail sacks were used to carry
this vast quantity of matter. The
largest number of sacks shipped in a
single day was 1928. These weighed
about S3 tons.
If these forms were placed in one
mail train 143 60-foot postal cars
would be required and the train would
be one and two-thirds miles long.
Placed end to end, the forms would ex-
tend 6S,044 mlles-more than twice
the distance around the earth.
Many sample cans of tomatoes such
as are used in the army have been
found by the inspection branch of the
subsistence division, quartermaster
corps, to be filed only to three-fourths
of an inch of the top, although weigh
ing the requisite amount. Instructions
have been issued that regardless of
weight, the cans must be filed to
within three-eighths of an inch Of the
top. If the cans are not filled to with
in half an inch of the top there is to
be q readjustment of prices and under
no circumstances, 1t is announced, will
underfilled cans be sent overseas.
1t has been calculated that IL this
saving Of three-eighths of an inch were
madf r all cans of tomatoes pur-
cha. " oy the army for a year, 1t
would equal 417OO0 cases, costing
about S1,5OO,OO0. The saving of tin
plate used in the can would equal
about 100000 square feet.
German prisoners are being used in
the construction of homes for Belgian
refugees in the village which the
American Red Cross is building near
Havre, France, for families who were
driven from their country by the Ger
man invasion. Many such prisoners
also have been put to work in the
fields in the section surrounding
Havre. They have harvested wheat
and other crops, thus lessening the